Re: debian unstable, stable enough?

On 2006-09-08 13:58:15 +0200, Jochen Schulz wrote:
Jordi Carrillo:

I'm using Debian testing and I was thinking about switching to
unstable. Is Debian unstable, stable enough for a Desktop system?

No, if you rely on your system to be available 100% (time and function
wise). No, if you don't (know how to) use the BTS, dpkg, apt, package
documentation. If you don't know how to upgrade (and cannot find out
except by asking here), take that as a sign that unstable is not stable
enough for you.

Yes if you have fun living on the edge. Yes, if you have enough time on
your hands to fix a breakage now and then. Yes, if you take regular
backups of your important data.

I've been using unstable for a few years, and haven't had any real
breakage. It may happen that some package no longer works for a few
days and it may be difficult to revert to the previous version, but
at least, one has up-to-date software (compared to Debian stable),
hence less buggy in general.

Concerning testing vs unstable, I've a PowerPC machine under testing
(+ some unstable packages when need be) and an x86 machine under
unstable. And there's not much difference. Both of them have some
transitory problems.

Are there broken dependencies in unstable?

Yes, sometimes. But that usually just means that you have to wait
upgrading or installing a particular package. Most of the time you
can still install an earlier version from testing or stable.

I'd say fewer broken dependencies than in testing.

--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)


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