Re: testing .v. unstable .v. sarge (WAS Re: apt-get Failure)
On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:22:44PM -0000, michael wrote:
> Inspired by the above and not being able to find anything recent in the
> mailing lists, may I ask people's views on which flavour (is that the
> correct term?) of Debian out of testing & unstable is currently
> recommended for a workstation (which will be used for running scientific
> codes, should not crashing for months on end, is secure from hackers and
> able to handle things like Fortran & C (running with MPI), Intel compilers
> (don't flame me!) and, probably, NFS mounts with other boxes in the
> locality)
Woody. Sorry. Sarge has been very stable lately, but there are no
guarantees and random packages will sometimes break.
> I initially went for 'stable' (woody) but it was too out of date for my
> Ethernet card & hard drive. I've now installed 'testing' (sarge) and have
> followed recommendations in the "Securing Debian Manual". However, I've
> been warned that there are no security updates for 'testing'. I also see
> hints on this list that 'sarge' is about to be the new 'stable' (although
> I'm unsure how & when!) from which I infer that there will soon be
> security updates for 'sarge'. Therefore, I think I'm as well staying with
> 'sarge' rather than moving to 'unstable' (sid), particularly in light of
> the above ''sed'' problem (as an example).
Nobody knows when Sarge goes stable. Speculation was December. I'd
bet on March, if I were a betting man. It's all guesswork, though,
even the release manager can't (and shouldn't) give a date now.
I recommend Sarge over Sid, but it's based on only one person's
experience with a couple of computers, so don't take it too
seriously. Because it's nearly-stable, Sarge is getting security
updates in a very timely fashion just now.
If you go with anything but stable, do your apt-get upgrades when
you're physically present, then immediately test everything critical
in case you have to revert.
--
Carl Fink carl@fink.to
Jabootu's Minister of Proofreading
http://www.jabootu.com
Reply to: