Re: Can I stay in testing without going etch?
Paul E Condon <pecondon@mesanetworks.net> writes:
> On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 11:10:13AM -0500, Owen Heisler wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-05-18 at 23:37 -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> > > Adam Hardy wrote:
> > > >
> > > > You mean 'testing' and 'etch' are interchangeable as far as the
> > > > sources.list entry goes?
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > lrwxrwxrwx 1 200 200 4 Jun 06 2005 testing -> etch
> > >
> > > The stable/testing/unstable names are just symlinks to the actual
> > > codenames. So for now, testing and etch are the same. Once etch is
> > > released, the symlinks will be upadted and testing will no longer be etch.
> > >
> > > -Roberto
> >
> > I have been following this thread as I am working on switching to
> > Debian, and have just these questions:
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Also, is the same true for unstable and testing?
> >
> > Thanks for clarifying.
>
> Look at http://www.debian.org/releases/
> Concerning unstable: Sid is unstable is sid is called unstable is
> 'Still In Development'. Don't use it until you have some experience
> with stable and testing.
In my opinion, you have two choices, whatever the stable is and
unstable/sid.
If you go with stable, just use a named stable in your sources.list -
like "sarge" since it's easier to control the dist-upgrade when an new
release comes.
For unstable or sid it doesn't really matter if you call it unstable
or sid in the sources.list - it ends up being equivalent. Sid can
have some brokeness from time to time but bad packages also get fixed
quickly. Only run it if you can handle minor incoveneniences and such.
Testing should not be used. It is the last to get security updates -
and due to the forced aging, you can't get them in a timely manner.
Usually, it has few broken things than sid. However, broken packages
that get into testing can stay broken for nearly unbounded lengths of
time. There is no manual intervention from debian to force important
fixes into testing if they haven't aged properly. Testing, in my
opinion, is only for those on the devel team doing quality assurance
for the next stable.
You can run testing and be prepared to pull in various things from
unstable to fix the things that go wrong. I figure that it's just
easier to run sid and be done with it.
--
Johan KULLSTAM
Reply to: