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On 11/03/2015 04:06 PM, The Wanderer
wrote:
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. How about packages that are not in testing, because they or their dependencies have bugs that prevent pushing them down from unstable? You're lucky you're not using any. OP does (filezilla). What do you recommend him to do? What if it isn't filezilla? What if it is xorg-server? It might happen. Testing isn't meant to always be usable. Well, unstable isn't as well, but it switches from unusable state to usable MUCH faster (days, as opposed to weeks). (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.) How about waiting a few weeks before dist-upgrading on sid? Solves all problems just as well. There's an essential package called apt-listbugs that you HAVE TO use when running either sid or testing. 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. There's no advice to install testing at all, for any user (because of the same reason - the package that you need may just not be there). I would also invoke the opinion of Raphael Herzog (the author of Debian Administrator Handbook) https://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/12/20/5-reasons-why-debian-unstable-does-not-deserve-its-name/ You, of course, are entitled to have your own opinion, nothing wrong with that. I've been running Sid as my main daily driver for >3 years with little to no issues.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. Not saying that everyone can or should. AM saying that those who can't should run stable, NOT testing. But, well, I guess different things work for different people. Some folks do use Arch, for example. |