Re: A rookie's query: Want to about Debian and the related
On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:53:00 +0530
AP <worldwithoutfences@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:07 PM, Catalin Soare
> <lolinux.soare@gmail.com> wrote:> Hello there!
>
> > Then, come back to Debian. Unless you choose any testing or
> > non-stable variants, you will notice that it truly is stable and
> > once setup, things Just Work (TM).
>
> Stable in what sense. Means we don't need to install anything again
> for years?
>
Depends on what you need that's new. Stable in the sense that the
software version is not changed, except for some frequently-updated
workstation software such as web browsers and virus checkers. Nearly
all other software is frozen at the version of about six months before
release. Releases are occurring about every two years, and security
support for the older version continues for another year.
This is what you need for servers and business workstations. You don't
want features to change unexpectedly, particularly if they may break
something you need to use every day, where actual money may be involved.
If the software does the job you want, it will still be doing that same
job three years later.
This may not be what you want as a leisure user, or even as a business
user if you don't mind fixing things. If you need to use more modern
software, such as a graphics program which gains new features every six
months, then you will want to look at faster-evolving distributions.
There are many of these, and quite a few are based on one of the other
two Debian distributions.
Debian Testing is the test bed for the next release of Stable. As such,
the software alters pretty much daily until the freeze, which is about
six months before the release of the next Stable. During that period,
bugs are fixed, and when there are relatively few left, it is released.
Not on a particular date, but when the bugs are fixed. Release happens
when the green line here:
http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/ pretty much hits zero, at
least in terms of serious bugs.
So the downside of using a more up-to-date distribution is more bugs,
as you would expect. There is a third Debian distribution called
Unstable, and it is. The software itself is fairly recent, and is
newly-integrated into Debian, which brings further surprises. Unstable
is never frozen or released, it evolves continuously. It evolves very
quickly after a Stable release, and anything that survives for about
ten days without serious problems gets moved to Testing, so both
distributions are a bit hairy to use for the next six months. Neither
are suitable for a beginner, so the recommendation is to try Stable.
As others have said, it is possible to use newer Linux software in any
of the distributions, you just have to take a bit of responsibility for
maintaining it, as it won't be automatically updated. Sometimes you can
use a Debian-compatible package, which has been made by the software
authors and hasn't, for a range of reasons, yet been accepted into a
Debian distribution. Sometimes you need to compile from source code,
though this isn't especially difficult. If you do bring in outside
software, you may need to do a little extra work, such as tracking down
a few additional required packages, or adding a few file links. Once
you've done a bit of this, and know where to look for help with
problems, you might want to try Testing or Unstable.
Bear in mind that almost any Linux distribution will have more problems
than Stable, simply because the software is newer. I've used Unstable
for leisure and business for nearly ten years now, during which time
I've had a few disagreements with it and reinstalled twice when
something was beyond my abilities to fix. But I've had similar problems
with Windows, of which the customers only ever see what is effectively
the Stable version, and it's a lot harder to fix things there.
--
Joe
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