Re: Benefits (and risks) of using Sid
Kent West wrote:
andy wrote:
Hi all
This is just a general enquiry about the benefits of using Sid on a
desktop or a workstation. Aside from obtaining up-to-the-minute
software (and related patches), are there any other benefits to using
Sid? I am aware of the risks - i.e. frequently broken applications -
but to be honest, how often does this happen?
I run Sid on my workstations; it's as stable as any Windows box I've
ever run
With respect Kent, that is hardly a ringing endorsement!! :)
The read advantage of Sid over Testing is when breakage does occur.
With Testing, you may have to wait a week or two before the fix comes
along; with Sid, the fix is often available within a day or two (not
always, but often). The disadvantage is that breakage usually occurs
more often than in Testing, but as a general rule, such breakage is
confined to a small subset of the system (again, not always.)
That's a fair point. I currently run stable (Lenny) because it seemed to
be a good balance between (relatively) up-to-date software that has
(mostly) had its bugs worked through.
Every once in a while a bug will creep in that will totally hose
things for a while, and may take some expertise and/or a learning
curve to fix, but like I say, my Sid experience over the past
almost-decade has been less-problematic than my Windows experiences
over twice that time.
It's this "expertise" that concerns me. I used to feel more confident in
using Slackware than I do using Debian, although I was far more into
fixing things and peering under the hood in those days than I am today
and I guess after a few years of using a distro one gets to know it
pretty well. The Debian-way does remain a bit of a mystery to me however.
For a server or other mission-critical role, I'd suggest you stay with
Stable.
That's a reasonable suggestion, and I probably will do so. However, your
reply does help address my query - thanks.
A
--
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
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