Henning Makholm wrote:
Scripsit Kamaraju Kusumanchi <kk288@cornell.edu> I object to the notion that | Testing is intended for Debian developers. If you are not a Debian | developer, then install unstable as opposed to testing. which rather permeates the document.
I read that somewhere in one of the official Debian documentation and just copied it there. But I did a google search upon seeing Henning's email and all I could find are links to my webpage.
Anyway thanks for pointing that out. I will be changing it over this weekend.
In principle testing is just a staging area for the next stable version. Not many people *need* to run it, but it has been found to be useful for users who want newer software than stable has yet don't want to risk the breakage-of-the-day in unstable. There's even said to be security support these days :-)
Yes. I have not updated the document after the announcement regarding testing-security-support was made. Thanks for pointing it out.
I don't think we as a project should endorse documentation that encourages running unstable. Our official attitude should be that unstable is only for people who want to be our guinea pigs. People who run it without wanting to be guinea pigs nevertheless become ones, and when things break for them, they don't get any sympathy.
The document does not endorse using unstable. It clearly encourages to use stable. But if one wants to choose between unstable and testing then it says to go with unstable. Even then I warn the user sufficiently enough (I think).
raju