Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?
On 05/10/2017 07:57 AM, songbird wrote:
you can set up several partitions with different
levels of fun if you want.
My spare laptop has a 250 GB HD and the laptop I use all the time has a
600 GB HD. I already have both partitioned for *one* OS - Debian 8. I
really don't want to go through repartitioning or reinstalling the whole
thing because I have a quite a lot of programs (some of which I have to
use for a jobs) and configurations which take a long time to put
together. I simply don't have the time right now because of work and
other commitments.
Also I hate dual-booting. I normally forget the other OS is there and it
just sets there just taking up HD space instead.
What I did was updated a Debian 8 Virtual Machine (on VirtualBox). I
have it but guess what? I haven't felt up to (nor had the time to) do
anything with it since. I may end up having to wait a couple months.
(Serves me right getting too curious!)
Having dual boot systems has it's advantages and disadvantages. But in
my particular case, I've found virtual machines to be more to my liking
as they don't require me to dual boot.
Also on the "other OS" I would still have emails, etc in that version's
thunderbird and it would be a hassle to keep having to import them all
to the "main" OS, and I don't like having to remember (and always
forgetting) to pop in a USB stick to save/get emails.
My hardware pretty much has to stick to one OS and the spare laptop has
to be identical so I can just plop in the backed up files (I at least
remember out of habit to backup frequently) and get to work fast (which
may be needed at any time).
This is why virtual machines come in so handy. I can clone one and go do
whatever it is I want/need to do. If it breaks, I can delete the
machine, clone another from the base and I'm good to go.
As for the "base" virtual machines, I keep the base VMs updated once a
week and then condense, export and back them up. This way I have
something ready to go on the spare laptop (which doesn't contain any
data files that change regularly, just the programs needed to do the
work I need to do, and data that is almost never changing).
I've found this setup to work best for me.
the thing with these setups is that in Debian you
don't have to get automatic updates if you don't want
them so you know when the system is being upgraded.
I do upgrades once a week, so that would be giving me yet another system
to upgrade and it would mean having to reboot and go into the other OS
to do it. Call me lazy, but I already have quite a few systems to update
every week now (2 laptops, an android phone, and 5 (so far) virtual
machines (which need to stay updated and ready to clone at any time for
use with development and testing). My computer is several years old so
it's not the fastest at rebooting (I think the VMs boot much faster).
What I'll do is work in the virtual machine (when I have time that is)
and then decide from there. Who knows, at the rate it's taking me to get
around to doing any experimenting, by that time Stretch may have gone
stable. :-P
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