Re: Switching to unstable
On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Matthias Szupryczynski wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> I am thinking to switch from stable to unstable these days. Is this
> advisable at the moment, or is the unstable branch suffering from mayor
> problems right now (libc broken etc.)
>
> Please cc to me as I am not on the list.
>
Why do you want to do that? I'm not running any machines on unstable at
the present time, but I have in the past. You have to realize that if you
run unstable and keep upgrading from time to time, then you will possibly
get a package that breaks your system in some significant way. That said,
there are times when you "must have" some package or version of a package
that is only available in unstable and so, for that reason, you take the
risk of running it. That's really the crux of it, how willing are you to
suffer problems due to immature packages in unstable.
My advice is not to run unstable unless there is some very good reason for
doing so (but this is based on my assumption that you pretty much want a
working system). If you do you MUST be prepared for problems to crop up,
unstable is used for integrating new packages/new versions into the Debian
software baseline. The whole purpose of doing software intergration is to
find and fix these kind of issues. It also isn't so important if there are
no problems in unstable right now, new/modified packages continually come
into unstable so it is usually changing.
Another very nice thing (IMHO) that Debian did beginning with woody, I
think, is the addition of "testing". testing is more stable than unstable
so if there is some reason why you need a package not in stable, check
testing to see if it is there.
Of course, if you just want to be on the bleeding edge and don't mind
the possibility of breakages, then go for it. Its your computer and you
can do whatever you want with it.
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