Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.:
> On Monday 02 November 2009 13:47:05 Celejar wrote:
>>
>> I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by 'fighting
>> dependencies'. I run Sid, and while I occasionally have to hold back
>> a few packages, and can't always do a complete, full upgrade, it's
>> simply a matter of holding back a few packages until they get into sync
>> again; I certainly don't have the skill to do anything particularly
>> sophisticated with dependencies.
>
> That, among other things, is exactly what I mean by fighting dependencies.
> Sometimes I am not happy with a package that is held back, which calls for
> more dependency wrangling. Downgrade or upgrade something else, de-install
> some software I'm not really using right now (like a Recommend or Suggest),
> satisfy an OR dependency with a different package, or some combination of the
> three. Keeping the number of packages I pull from
> testing/unstable/experimental as minimal as possible results in more (aptitude
> safe-upgrade)s that "just work".
My sid safe-upgrades in sid usually "just work". I am a long-time sid
user (>5 years) and the current state (the LVM<->Gnome problem) is a
rare exception. I don't recommend running sid, but to be honest, it
almost always runs smoothly on machines I update daily.
It's a different beast when you upgrade only once a month. I have a
seldomly used and therefore irregularly updated machine which suffers
from problems more often. But that may just be my misguided perception
because the machine has an nVidia card. ;-)
Another reason for my "success" may be the fact that in the past I most
often found it easier to reinstall on certain occasions (disk exchange,
re-partitioning) than to restore from a backup (which in turn may be due
to the fact that most of the time I don't have a recent backup). My
installations never get really old. Now I finally use LVM, so I hope
these special occasions happen less often. :)
> Mixed systems are just as "supported" as running testing or unstable, which is
> to say, not officially. IME, they result in a system with the advantages of
> both stable and unstable.
Running testing/unstable might not be "supported", but that's what the
developers/maintainers are working at. If sid is broken, they fix it.
J.
--
In this bunker there are women and children. There are no weapons.
[Agree] [Disagree]
<http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html>
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature