Re: Sources for apt-get sources.list
John Purser <jmpurser2@home.com> writes:
JP> I'm running Woody and I'm confused about what sources to list for apt-get.
JP> When I look at the ftp sites I see directories for Potato and Stable. I
JP> thought Potato was Stable. Also I see Woody as well as Unstable AND
JP> Testing. I'm not sure what status Woody is in just now.
JP>
JP> Questions:
JP> Am I seeing generic names (Stable) as well as distribution names (Potato)
JP> and getting them confused? Or is there a difference between them?
"stable", "testing", and "unstable" are generic names; they will
always point to the current distributions in those states. "potato",
"woody", and "sid" are names of distributions. Right now potato is
stable, woody is testing, and sid is unstable; eventually woody will
become stable, though sid will stay unstable. (The release names are
characters from the Toy Story movies; Sid is the kid who breaks toys.)
JP> I'm running Woody for a project I'm involved with. Should I be
JP> updating my system from Stable, Unstable, Testing, or Woody if I'm
JP> fairly new to Linux and not interested (or competent) to assist in
JP> bug hunting.
If you want something that Just Works, I'd recommend stable; it's
mostly debugged, and the only upcoming changes to the current release
would be security fixes. unstable is good if you absolutely must be
on the bleeding edge, or it you're a Debian developer. woody seems to
be a good compromise between bleeding-edge and not-totally-broken, but
it changes constantly and won't have nearly as much testing as a
full-fledged stable release.
--
David Maze dmaze@debian.org http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/
"Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal."
-- Abra Mitchell
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