Re: Debian crash randomly

On 28/04/2008, Micha <michf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Actually i recommend sid to everyone except for servers where stable is more
suitable.

You must enjoy debugging a lot, then. Sid really *is* unstable, like
its name sounds, and like we can witness with Mond and with me. Newer
software is hardly ever necessary. For the fabled "desktop use",
stable is pretty good (websurfing, MSFT office documents, chatting,
multimedia), and there is no way I'm installing anything but stable on
grandma's machine. Stable doesn't crash, it does what it's supposed to
do, and it gives free software a good name.

Backports are rarely necessary, and if there is a user savvy enough to
know that they want something newer than what's in stable, I recommend
them to try a backport, and if that doesn't work, then to compile from
source. Otherwise, I really question why do they need newer software.

Hardware compatibility is a different issue. If they have hardware
that's too new for the etch kernels, then I will recommend testing,
with many reservations. But I don't recommend unstable to anyone
unless they're willing to tolerate the occasional crash and possible
data loss. This is Debian's official position too regarding the three
distributions. "The unstable distribution is where active development
of Debian occurs. Generally, this distribution is run by developers
and those who like to live on the edge." Debian newbies presumably
don't want to live on the edge. Debian also recommends that you run
stable, and they don't make a distinction between running stable on
servers or on "desktops".

I run testing most of the time, with the occasional non-critical
unstable package, but that's because I like bugs. :-) When I can, I
will poke around the source code to see if I can find why a particular
piece of software is segfaulting.

- Jordi G. H.


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