Why people don't test development distributions

I know the answer :)

You make the stable system snapshots of the unstable system. This reflects the true nature of software were progress is a relentless grind and releases are merely development snapshots that are given special consideration.

This is how Debian does it with Sid and the testing snapshots and it works terrifically. I have used Debian unstable for years at a time without the major breakages that Fedora and Ubuntu users suffer from. Just lots of little breakage from time to time.

Then to solve the little breakages you use the brilliant Conary package management system developed by former Redhat developers in rPath and is incorporated into Foresight Linux distribution.

Conary has many very significant design advantages over RPM or DPKG system.

* Packages are very easy to make compared to deb or rpm format.

* Only updates the specific files that need to be updated, not entire software packages.

* features 'Rollbacks' so that users can freely and simply do downgrades in order to avoid breakages that plague normal Linux users.

Apt-get and Yum and such are designed to make upgrade easier... Conary makes going both ways easier. It is by far a much superior design.

If I was ruler of the planet I would have a single distribution core, featuring mainly 'Linux plumbing' that is under continious development. Then Debian and Fedora folks would be forced to port their stuff over to Conary packages and use the common core for building their custom distributions.

This would have a massive effect of reducing workload, eliminating redundant packaging and thus increasing the quality and number packages dramatically.

:)