Re: Eliminating upgrade confusion
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 03:44:06AM +0200, David Jardine wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 08:12:27PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:
> > David Jardine wrote:
> > > Somebody who was running stable didn't want woody to be replaced
> > > by sarge without his being asked. Somebody running testing didn't
> > > want to move from sarge to etch automatically. (Sid seems to be
> > > the only stable one.)
> >
> > No, you are describing people who are running woody and sarge and should
> > have those in their sources.list.
>
> Exactly. But do we realise, as beginners, what the implications
> are of putting "stable" or "testing" in sources.list? If we
> didn't know we could use these words (or if we knew we couldn't),
> we wouldn't. But we do and we get ourselves into a mess. I think
> you're overestimating the ability of people like me to really grasp
> the whole picture.
I have only recently found out you can use release names (woody, sarge,
...) in sources.list. But, if I ran "apt-get update" on stable and all
the files got updated then I knew something had changed.
If you have testing in your sources.list then you are helping to test
the next stable, which a beginner should probably not be doing.
If you have unstable (always called sid) in your sources.list then
you are running the latest software in an unstable environment.
Some knowledge is necessary in resolving dependencies, following bug
reports, and general problem solving. With these skills unstable is
actually quite stable. Not recommended for beginners or people with
a dialup connection to the Internet.
The releases (stable, testing, unstable, experimental) are quite well
documented, e.g.:
debian-reference-en
doc-debian
apt-get install doc-debian debian-reference-en
It is a fairly steep and frustrating learning curve.
--
Chris.
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