Re: How would I get debian unstable?
On Thursday 05 Jun 2008, annne annnie wrote:
> I'd like to use debian unstable, but I do not know how to get it. If
> someone could direct me to a site that has the steps set out or type the
> steps or something it would be much appreciated. I have the image for
> debian testing from about a month or two ago (it's lenny), can I use
> testing to get to unstable?
Yes, just edit
/etc/apt/sources.list
and change every occurrence of "stable", "etch", "testing" or "lenny"
to "sid". Then
# apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
and you should be good to go.
> Also, why did you people choose to use debian? Is it just better than
> other distributions? It seems like you people are elite linux users, and I
> just wanted to the differences between debian and some other distributions.
> I haven't tried many, but to me they would all seem the same (I'm new).
For me, Debian is all about purity (only Free software is installed by
default) but also about not getting in the way of the user. Debian doesn't
insist for you to use some fancy graphical configuration tools; you can just
edit configuration files by hand without fear of breaking anything or having
them overwritten by some magical master configurator. And you can choose
whether you want to install pre-compiled packages or compile from Source.
Almost every piece of Free software ever written is available in the
repositories anyway, ready to use; but if you happen to have some special
requirement, you can easily build your own hacked-up version (for instance,
I have a specially-modified copy of Gramofile -- a vinyl LP ripping
program -- that is tied to the USB audio input).
Debian isn't the easiest distribution in the world, or it certainly wasn't
when I started out on it. Try as I might, I couldn't quite get to grips with
it and so went over to Mandriva (or Mandrake, as it was called then). That
was fine for awhile, but I eventually outgrew it: their package repository
was limited and I ended up learning to compile things from Source Code. And
by the time you're doing that (and you have learned the hard way
about -devel packages, or -dev packages as Debian calls them) then it no
longer matters which distro you're running anymore.
This, of course, was a long time before there was such a thing as Ubuntu. For
the most part, Ubuntu *is* Debian, just customised. Bits have been sawn off
and bits have been welded on, but the engine and chassis are recognisably
Debian. Ubuntu is what I would recommend to anyone seeking to try Linux out;
just because I know that if it fouls up, it's familiar enough for me to be
able to fix it -- all the configs and logs are exactly where I have come to
expect them to be.
The other distributions with a reputation for being "hard" (because they
involve understanding, if not how things work under the bonnet then that
there *is* a bonnet with moving parts under it, and sometimes doing things by
hand without the benefit of slick graphical "wizards" to allow you to select
one of a number of pre-set configurations; some people seem conditioned to
think that there is something intrinsically hard about reading text and
typing on a keyboard) are Gentoo and Slackware.
Slackware is very "old-skool" (though it has up-to-date packages), and tends
to stay even further out of your way than Debian does. This extends to not
having a package management and dependency resolution system of its own. I
tried it, and it didn't really seem to offer anything that Debian didn't.
Gentoo is famous for tweakability. Instead of pre-compiled packages, Gentoo
packages contain Source Code and automated build instructions; they are
compiled right on your machine to suit your machine, according to various
optimisation flags specified by you. Again, I tried it; and it also didn't
seem to offer anything special over Debian apart from the fact of there being
no more need for -dev packages. It was a good learning experience, though:
I'd seriously advise anyone who is thinking of creating their own GNU/Linux
distribution to do an install of Gentoo from Stage One, even if you don't
plan to base your distro from Gentoo.
In all fairness to Slackware and Gentoo, I am quite sure that had I been using
either of these first and dallied with Debian, I would have gone back to what
I knew. And if Ubuntu had been around when I lost patience with Debian, then
that's what I would have tried next. If I'd tried Ubuntu sooner, I'm not
even sure I'd ever have reverted to Debian; except maybe for GUI-free
servers.
BTW. If you want to see real elitism, try hanging around with a bunch of SuSE
users -- they are all boss-eyed from looking down their noses at everyone
else! ;)
--
AJS
delta echo bravo six four at earthshod dot co dot uk
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