[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Woody vs. Sarge vs. You've heard this before ;-)



> I was under the impression that the progression from "most reliable"
> to "most chaotic" was Stable -> Testing -> Unstable. Is that not so?

So was I. It is not so (or so I've been told and my experiance backs
this up.) Unstable has been fine for my desktop for over a month now.

I stumbled on this while trying to 'help the community' and test testing

(sounds sensible, right?)

After some frustration with things seeming broken, but being told,
"it's not really broken, all the pieces just aren't there yet." I sent
some emails into the list and was informed that the stability order is
most often: Stable -> Unstable -> Testing, except for when testing
is 'frozen' in preparation to release a new stable.

Over and over I hear "Use Unstable if you want the new stuff, use
 Stable for servers (or for desktop systems if you don't care about
using an old Desktop manager and apps)."

The fact that I hear it said so much re-confirms to me that the labels
testing and unstable (unless you like adventure) and possibly the
writeup on the debian site lead the masses to expect something
different than what they get.

I think the page describing the packages should be changed.
Instead of boasting the "strict criteria" that unstable must pass
before entering testing, maybe it should say:

"Stuff pops into testing when it passes an automated build process
If you're boored of Stable, but aren't a developer and
Testing isn't frozen, use Unstable. You'll be happier."

http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

To get more info, check out this thread and search the archives.
Note the focus on when things like patches and security updates
would actually make it to Testing.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2003/debian-user-200307/msg00633.html

Jacob
jacob@cachevalley.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aaron" <aaron@core-dev.com>
To: <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: Woody vs. Sarge vs. You've heard this before ;-)


> On -2406-Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 02:28:27PM -0600, Jacob Anawalt
<jacob@cachevalley.com> spake thus,
> > I know your question was about Testing, and I answered with Unstable.
> > You can do the same thing to go to testing if you want, but I don't
> > reccomend it. Don't do testing unless you're just doing a package or two
> > mixed with stable until they do a freeze on testing. Just because a
package
> > is in testing doesn't mean it's ready for use. You can search the
archives
> > for more on this, but the basic idea I got from people is that unstable
is
> > a better choice than testing if you want to try out the new packages.
>
> I was under the impression that the progression from "most reliable"
> to "most chaotic" was Stable -> Testing -> Unstable. Is that not so?
>
> I'm also wholeheartedly against doing any sort of distribution hybrid
> after reading horror stories of avalanching dependency problems
> branching from trying to install testing or unstable packages in a
> stable install and ending up with multiple major versions of libraries
> and things... I don't want to deal with that.
>
> -- 
> Aaron Bieber
> -
> Graphic Design // Web Design
> http://www.fisheyemultimedia.com/
> aaron@fisheyemultimedia.com
>
>
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
listmaster@lists.debian.org
>



Reply to: