On 2015-11-03 at 04:07, Alex Moonshine wrote: > On 11/03/2015 06:15 AM, Chris Bannister wrote: > >> You mean your suggestion to install Sid? I agree. Suggesting that >> someone run sid just so that they can have the latest package, is >> IMHO, very cruel. > > To someone who runs stable - sure. He's running testing, though, > which is more troublesome, in my experience, then Sid. That does not match my experience, at all. When I first installed Debian (I think with potato), I started out with running stable; it wasn't long before I switched to tracking sid, for various reasons including the awareness that unstable does no good if people don't help test it. This worked okay-ish for some while, but in the long run I definitely had cause to regret it. I ended up with a computer in an inconsistent and broken state, which it wasn't clear could practically be fixed even by a lot of manual work - so when I built my next new computer, I reinstalled. The first time, I still kept tracking sid. Then the same thing happened again, only arguably worse, on _that_ computer. So when I built my _next_ new computer, I abandoned sid and switched to tracking testing. So far, the only structural problem I've had with testing has been in the grub-related packages, in the form of longstanding open bugs reported by people whose computers became unbootable after a grub upgrade (which may have been related to the transition away from grub-legacy); I've had those packages set on hold for what seems like years now, ever since those bugs first appeared, to avoid the risk of this computer getting into a similar state. Even this hasn't caused me any practical problems, however. (Well, aside from temporary breakage due to package transitions such as the recent lib*v5 mess. That's just a matter of "wait a few weeks before dist-upgrading", though, which isn't unreasonable; it seems unlikely that most people will want to dist-upgrade multiple times a week the way I usually do outside of a release freeze.) > Even Debian documentation recommends unstable over testing: > https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-choosing.en.html I think I can see what you're interpreting as "recommends unstable over testing" in that document, but only barely. It's certainly not a bald or unequivocal recommendation, unless I'm missing something. I would certainly not recommend that _anyone_ run sid on their primary computer, much less on their only computer. Installing a single package as a one-off is one thing (and I occasionally do it myself), but - as the name implies - sid is, and probably always will be, too unstable to be safe for general use. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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