My desktop OS: Debian Etch (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

My desktop OS: Debian Etch (NewsForge)

Posted Jun 1, 2006 18:04 UTC (Thu) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943)
In reply to: My desktop OS: Debian Etch (NewsForge) by vonbrand
Parent article: My desktop OS: Debian Etch (NewsForge)

vonbrand wrote:

"Cutting edge" + "stability at any cost" in a testing branch of a distribution? And Debian "cutting edge"? What is this guy smoking?

Cutting edge: Here are some representative versions a/o this date:

gcc: 4.0.3 (standard), 4.1.0 available
kernel: 2.6.15
glibc: 2.3.6
evolution: 2.4.2.1
apache1.3.x: 1.3.34
apache2: 2.0.55
sylpheed: 2.2.4
sylpheed-claws: 1.0.5
kdebase: 3.5.2
gnumeric: 1.6.3
firefox: 1.5
konqueror: 3.5.2
gimp: 2.2.11

(Versions increment daily.)

Stability at any cost: The "testing" track differs from the "unstable" development track in filtering via an automated quarantining script to check package quality following new submissions from maintainers and consequent package autobuilds. This results in "testing's" contents generally having on an ongoing basis higher overall quality than most ostensibly stable distributions' software.

Sorry to hear about your lack of knowledge of the subject matter, trollboy. You might want to get out, more.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

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My desktop OS: Debian Etch (NewsForge)

Posted Jun 3, 2006 21:31 UTC (Sat) by hein.zelle (guest, #33324) [Link]

One thing that I find misleading about the abstract of this article is that the "cutting edge level" of Debian testing (which I've been using on a daily basis since january 2005, before Sarge became "stable") has varied quite a bit over time. Just before the Sarge release, stability of testing was great while it was not so cutting-edge at all. Recently it has been much more cutting edge, but I've also had a case where I nearly blew up my installation with a dist-upgrade due to the switch to kernel 2.6.15 and udev which didn't quite go without hickups.

For me testing has been an excellent choice for a relatively stable desktop so far, but I think it's important to realize that it's neither always stable nor does it always have the very latest software.

My desktop OS: Debian Etch (NewsForge)

Posted Jun 20, 2006 14:30 UTC (Tue) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link]

hein.zelle wrote:

Recently it has been much more cutting edge, but I've also had a case where I nearly blew up my installation with a dist-upgrade due to the switch to kernel 2.6.15 and udev which didn't quite go without hickups.

I think you may have missed something important about Debian architecture: Debian never moves changes your system from one kernel.org release to another without your asking it to -- unless you have installed one of the kernel-image metapackages, such as this one:

Package: kernel-image-2.4-686-smp
[...]
Description: Linux kernel image for version 2.4 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4 SMP This package will always depend on the latest 2.4 kernel image available for Pentium Pro/Celeron/Pentium II/Pentium III/Pentium 4 with SMP support. SMP (symmetric multi-processing) is needed if you have multiple processors.

These are well worth noting, but also predictable if you understand the intent and functioning of the quarantining regime that defines that branch.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com