Re: A rookie's query: Want to about Debian and the related
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 1:34 AM, Joe <joe@jretrading.com> wrote:
> Depends on what you need that's new. Stable in the sense that the
> software version is not changed, except for some frequently-updated
> workstation software such as web browsers and virus checkers. Nearly
> all other software is frozen at the version of about six months before
> release. Releases are occurring about every two years, and security
> support for the older version continues for another year.
> This is what you need for servers and business workstations. You don't
> want features to change unexpectedly, particularly if they may break
> something you need to use every day, where actual money may be involved.
> If the software does the job you want, it will still be doing that same
> job three years later.
> This may not be what you want as a leisure user, or even as a business
> user if you don't mind fixing things. If you need to use more modern
> software, such as a graphics program which gains new features every six
> months, then you will want to look at faster-evolving distributions.
> There are many of these, and quite a few are based on one of the other
> two Debian distributions.
> Debian Testing is the test bed for the next release of Stable. As such,
> the software alters pretty much daily until the freeze, which is about
> six months before the release of the next Stable. During that period,
> bugs are fixed, and when there are relatively few left, it is released.
> Not on a particular date, but when the bugs are fixed. Release happens
> when the green line here:
> http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/ pretty much hits zero, at
> least in terms of serious bugs.
> So the downside of using a more up-to-date distribution is more bugs,
> as you would expect. There is a third Debian distribution called
> Unstable, and it is. The software itself is fairly recent, and is
> newly-integrated into Debian, which brings further surprises. Unstable
> is never frozen or released, it evolves continuously. It evolves very
> quickly after a Stable release, and anything that survives for about
> ten days without serious problems gets moved to Testing, so both
> distributions are a bit hairy to use for the next six months. Neither
> are suitable for a beginner, so the recommendation is to try Stable.
> As others have said, it is possible to use newer Linux software in any
> of the distributions, you just have to take a bit of responsibility for
> maintaining it, as it won't be automatically updated. Sometimes you can
> use a Debian-compatible package, which has been made by the software
> authors and hasn't, for a range of reasons, yet been accepted into a
> Debian distribution. Sometimes you need to compile from source code,
> though this isn't especially difficult. If you do bring in outside
> software, you may need to do a little extra work, such as tracking down
> a few additional required packages, or adding a few file links. Once
> you've done a bit of this, and know where to look for help with
> problems, you might want to try Testing or Unstable.
> Bear in mind that almost any Linux distribution will have more problems
> than Stable, simply because the software is newer. I've used Unstable
> for leisure and business for nearly ten years now, during which time
> I've had a few disagreements with it and reinstalled twice when
> something was beyond my abilities to fix. But I've had similar problems
> with Windows, of which the customers only ever see what is effectively
> the Stable version, and it's a lot harder to fix things there.
Well, I agree with your points but I believe now that stable versions
are best suited for the business needs and where changes are not
required frequently. Once set-up, just take coffee and forget for
years....all things work like you worked for the very first
year...(except for a few changes, if any). That's good for servers. To
my belief, end users would like something more fancy!
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