Sven Hartge wrote: > If you know, how to pull yourself out of the mud, are able to file bug > reports, read bug reports und know how to use apt-listchanges and > apt-listbugs, _then_ you can use Sid. (Been doing that for over 15 years > myself.) (Chuckle.) I'm good to go. Specifically the reason I am using Sid Unstable is so that I get the early preview of what is happening in Testing. Then I can avoid the bugs there and Stable and can file bugs and work to get things fixed before they enter Stable. Unfortunately one person's bug is another person's feature and therefore we are not completely in agreement over what ends up in Stable. But participating in the process is much better than being only a passenger on it. > If one wants to use Sid, he/she should know about the following things: > > - how to boot your system from a rescue medium (and have one ready) > - how to unpack a DEB without using the Debian tools and only with "ar" > - how to identify a broken library and revert to a working one > - be able to interpret linker error messages > - know where to find the relevant system log files and how to read them > - how to pin pacakges to a specific version > - know about snapshot.debian.org > - tracker.debian.org > - https://release.debian.org/transitions/ > - how to rebuild a package using pbuilder/cowbuilder/sbuild > - debug packages and basic GDB usage > - reportbug > - generally understand how a Linux boot works > > If one needs an always working system, she/he better stick with Stable > or Testing (as soon as it has cooled down enough). Agreed to most! Generally in concept anyway. Some of the details vary. :-) I am not a fan of pinning. Generally people try to use it to keep a mixed system. My opinion is that way leads to madness. Building packages does not *require* pbuilder/cowbuilder/sbuild but being able to build your own packages by some method is a very useful and needed skill. I would probably add other skills to the list such as being able to use either apt-get or aptitude (my preference is apt-get and friends) at a deep level to upgrade and downgrade when the system needs manual attention for it. Other things too. Bob
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