Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r4 released

Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r4 released

Posted Jan 3, 2005 18:23 UTC (Mon) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688)
In reply to: Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r4 released by imp
Parent article: Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r4 released

> Stability? No more stable than bleeding-edge distros like Gentoo. I really
> don't see the point in Debian "stable" and, for the record, I'm not thinking
> about bleeding edge alpha/beta software on the other end, rather the
> reasonable new stuff, like 2.6 kernels, which are still considered
> "unstable" on Debian?! Geez. Live in the *now*.

Debian stable is more stable than Gentoo and other bleeding-edge distros. While those distros may allow you to upgrade to the latest version, that version might contain incompatabilities with other software, or configuration changes that could cause you to have to re-test components of your system. For example, you might have a shell or perl script that depends on a certain format of a file which has now changed because you upgraded to a new version of a program just to get security fixes.

The Debian security team only makes changes to packages to fix security issues. They won't introduce any changes that would change the functionality or configuration of a package. This ensures that your program will continue to work as it always has. The security team will backport the fixes to the version that is in the stable release to achieve this. For many people this level of stability is important.

That's what stable means. If you don't need that level of rock-solid stability then testing, unstable, or even another distro such as Gentoo might be a better choice for your needs.

---

(Log in to post comments)