Jeff Grossman:
>
> [...] How dangerous would it be for me to move completely to unstable?
I do not think it would be particularly dangerous. Security updates
generally reach sid quite fast (but, of course, without guarantee). But
with about seven years of Debian experience, I still refrain from
running unstable on machines offering services on the internet.
By the way, currently there is a problem with the machines building new
packages for sid. That means sid users are getting no updates
whatsoever. No security updates, no new upstream releases, no bug fixes.
Stable users on the other hand do get security support.
> Has anybody completely trashed their system by running unstable?
The risk of a faulty upgrade that seriously breaks your system is quite
low. I am running sid on my main desktop for probably five years already
and it never happened to me. But there sometimes is serious collateral
damage. IIRC, once there was a script for package configuration that
(accidentally) did something like 'rm -rf /'. I wasn't hit by this, but
that was pure luck. You have to be prepared to be a beta tester all the
time.
Another aspect that you should consider is that it takes quite some
effort to keep a sid system up to date. Every time you upgrade, you
might install some version of a package that demands a new configuration
file syntax, introduces new bugs or isn't compatible with another
package you rely on. If availability of your services is in any way
important to one of your users, I don't think sid is appropriate.
Another experience of mine is that it is a really bad idea to have
inexperienced or more or less computer-illiterate people using a sid
system directly (as a desktop user). For these people it is quite
confusing when their desktop environment or office application receives
an upgrade which changes its appearance.
I do not think that sid usage is generally a bad idea, even for
inexperienced users. But you should not use sid on a system you or other
people rely on and you should be prepared to learn about how Debian
works and how to act when it doesn't.
J.
--
Ultimately, the Millenium Dome is a spectacular monument of the
doublethink of our times.
[Agree] [Disagree]
<http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html>
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