Re: Stable vs. Testing Vs. Unstable
On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 22:29:15 -0700
"Loren M. Lang" <lorenl@alzatex.com> wrote:
> I'm curious about how many people are actually using Debian Unstable
> or Testing to Stable for normal desktop use or even a production
> server. I've being using Gentoo lately, and I love how nice the newer
> software is like KDE 3.2.1 or Gnome 2.4 and I don't want to go back to
> Gnome 1.x just because I want a "stable" debian system, where gentoo
> seems to run fine with the latest.
> --
Well, I'm currently running four Debian boxes at home.
Two of these are "desktops", although one is actually a Dell laptop with a dead battery, so you might as well call it a desktop :-)
I'm also running a mail server, which also servers DHCP, DNS, NTP, CUPS, and does backups as well.
There is also a web server which doubles up as a PPTP VPN server.
Basically, to get all the functionality I wanted from these boxes, I had to choose Debian Sarge.
The version of ppp provided with stable does not include ms-chapv2 or mppe support. Stable does not include mimedefang. Stable does not include xfree86 4.3.x.
These are all features that required me to move from stable to testing at home, and I have actually found it to be pretty stable. The only issuse I've had so far have either been hardware related (all my hardware is old and well past the used by date) or has been fixed in an update in the next day or two.
However, in a production environment for corporate purposes, I would strongly suggest stable due to the security issues.
I work for an IT outsourcing company at the moment but, unfortunately, everything except our internal proxy server is Windoze based. This proxy box is running *shudder* Red Hat 9, due to a serious lack of Linux knowledge in the organisation. Mind you, I'm not all that brilliant at it myself yet :-)
I'm hoping in the near future to change a few things and implement at least one other Linux box, preferably Debian based. However, I'm holding off pushing for anything until Sarge gets released as the new stable distribution due to us requiring features (like mimedefang) that aren't available in Woody.
I realise that exim works with exiscan-acl (I think that's right!), but I've had much more success with sendmail as opposed to exim, but that's more a personal preference rather than a functionality issue. To my knowledge, exim works well when configured correctly.
Anyway, that's my opinion, whether it helps you or not is a different story...
Pete
Reply to: