Re: Debian testing vs unstable for home workstation?
On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 09:25:12AM -0500, Kent West wrote:
> Adam Funk wrote:
>
> >So are there any practical disadvantages to running unstable instead of
> >testing?
> >
> A couple of years ago a bug found its way into PAM in unstable, and
> caused a lot of unstable users to be unable to log into their machines.
> testing users, IIRC, did not get that problem, as it was resolved before
> the package trickled into testing.
Yes. Many libc issues usually kills many server application until it is
fixed in a short period. But all these are minor issues since you can
always boot system with alternative install of stable linux (or even
bootCD with few tricks) to fix these packages.
If you are not ready for these, time to do RTFM.
http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#quick-reference
Is a good start since I wrote it :)
Oh, broken lilo/grub has happened in unstable. You only need debian
install CD. (I am lazy. I never made boot floppy recently.)
> Currently, unstable on a Sun Blade 2000 (Sparc architecture) with ATI
> video causes the machine to lock solid (no console, no ssh'ing in, no
> pinging the box - just have to power cycle) when X attempts to start
> (although this also happens with Testing, so doesn't really address your
> question -- stable works fine).
As long as you have knowledge and time to play with it while having
immediate hardware access, unstable or testing is a good system.
> So, yes, there are some practical disadvantages to running unstable vs
> testing, but for the _most_ part, I believe unstable is a better choice
> than stable for most desktop users.
As long as they have learned basic Debian administration knowledge.
Otherwise, stick to the testing (few month after the release of
stable) without security update or the stable with security update for
the desktop use.
Osamu
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