On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 02:58:30PM -0500, Owen Heisler wrote: > On Sat, 2006-05-20 at 22:44 +0300, Black Dew wrote: > > > If I install Debian stable and have "stable" in the sources.list file, > > > will updates keep happening, even across releases? I think it would be > > > great it I never had to reinstall, yet could still have a completely > > > up-to-date system. > > > > "stable" is just a pointer to the latest release. So if you put now > > "stable" in sources.list you'd be running Sarge. > > When Etch gets released, "stable" will point to Etch, so your system > > will upgrade (more or less) automatically next time you run apt-get update. > > Also if you add the security updates repository you will get critical > > security updates between releases. > > > > > Also, is the same true for unstable and testing? > > > > For testing: yes > > For unstable: the unstable "release" (Sid) doesn't have releases, your > > system will just get new packages as soon as they are available > > (sometimes causing major breakage :)) > > > > And yeah, it's one of the great things with debian - there is no need to > > reinstall it whatever happens, you can always down/up-grade it to > > whatever you want. > > Thanks Andrew, Paul, hendrik, & Black Dew, for all the great > information. Debian.org/releases/ explained the names > (stable/testing/unstable) but not much else. > > I will probably follow stable unless the packages are all too old, then > will jump to testing. This brings up something else: if I have > "testing" in my sources.list file and replace it with "stable" (if I > want to go back to stable), what will aptitude do during an upgrade or > dist-upgrade? Will it down-grade packages or just not update them? Downgrading is a complicated and potentially not "doable" thing. I know many have done it for specific packages, but taking a whole system down is another matter. That is one case where I personally would go the reinstallation route rather than opening that can of worms. .02 A
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature