Re: We might need a better wording for our release page
Richard Lewis wrote:
> Debian Releases
>
> Debian is avialable in three main versions (also called suites, releases
available
> or distributions): stable, testing and unstable.
> stable
> ------
> This is the latest official Debian release. It is the version
> recommended for beginners and for production services.
>
> The name "stable" refers to the fact that it does not change often:
> although we regularly release security fixes, we (almost) never change
> the versions of software in it. We do make updates which can introduce
> minor changes, but care is taken to not break anything. We generally
> release a new vesion of stable every couple of years, but there is no
version
> fixed timetable: we release a new stable version when it is ready.
>
> The current stable release of Debian is version 12, codenamed
> bookworm. It was initially released on 10 June 2023 and its latest
> update, version 12.8, was released on 9 November 2024.
The other suites get quotes round the codenames, so probably this
should too: "bookworm".
>
> testing
> -------
>
> This is where the next version of Debian is tested. It is updated
> constantly with packages arriving from unstable (see below) if no
> critical bugs have been found in them. In practice many users treat this
> as a "rolling release". It requires a lot more active administration
> than stable because, for example, it does not receive direct security
> support and broken software can only be fixed by packaages migrating
packages
> from unstable. It does, however, gives access to newer software than
give
> stable.
>
> The current "testing" version of Debian is codenamed "trixie". See the
> Debian FAQ for more information.
This has lost the rationale for referring to the FAQ - the current
webpage version has
See the [Debian FAQ] for more information on [what is "testing"] and
[how it becomes "stable"].
Should we perhaps drop those links in favour of a general-purpose "see
also the Debian FAQ" pointer at the very end?
Mind you, according to FAQ 3.1. "Which Debian distribution
(stable/testing/unstable) is better for me?" the answer is never
"testing"... That text mostly dates back to the noughties, but that's
before backports.debian.org, let alone easy virtual/containerisation,
both of which undermine the justification for users running anything
but stable - unless of course they need the very latest hardware
support, and we don't mention that aspect here.
> unstable
> --------
> This is where active development of Debian occurs. Generally, unstable
> is used by developers and advanced users who like to live on the
> edge. As the name suggests, using unstable comes with a high risk of
> broken software. If you use unstable you should also subscribe to the
> debian-devel-announce mailing list to receive notifications of major
> changes.
>
> The "unstable" version of Debian is always codenamed "sid".
No problems here.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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