quote: Debian FAQ 5.5
sid or unstable is the place where most of the packages are initially uploaded. It will never be released directly, because packages which are to be released will first have to be included in testing, in order to be released in stable later on. sid contains packages for both released and unreleased architectures.

That seems to reaffirm what I''m trying to say. Sid has been unstable for as long as I''ve been following Debian (which, I admit, hasn''t been that long, but long enough to remember Woody becoming stable and Sarge becoming testing).

quote: Original post by Sneftel
Not true. I remember when Potato was unstable. Then Potato was stable, and Woody was unstable.

Are you sure you aren''t confusing unstable with testing? When Woody was testing (and Potato stable), Sid was still unstable.

quote: Original post by Sneftel
True, the methodology has changed. My point was that a particular codename (Sid, Woody, Hamm, etc) is not indelibly tied to a classification (stable, testing, unstable), which NaV had seemed to imply in his last paragraph.

I didn''t mean to imply that.

quote: Original post by Null and Void
Are you sure you aren''t confusing unstable with testing? When Woody was testing (and Potato stable), Sid was still unstable.

Yup. Woody/Potato was the point at which they started the "testing" branch; before that, IIRC, it had just been stable and unstable

How appropriate. You fight like a cow.

quote: Debian unstable is like rh 8 or 9?? Why do you think so? From what i''ve read (not much), seems like running unstable is full of troubles and all...

I''m asking it because i''m thinking about using a unstable version for a while. But if i''ll be in trouble, then maybe it''s better not to do that.

Victor.

Debian unstable really is like the latest given RH release in terms of stability. RH and friends tend to release stuff to end-users that is untested and unstable like it is the norm, Slackware and Debian however tend to hold off and get as many issues resolved as possible before giving a package the ''nod''.

Heh,

For generic server purposes ( mail, www, dns, etc etc ) if I''m using Linux ( I have a friendly mix of Solaris, Irix, OpenBSD, Debian Linux, Win2k/WinXP for various purposes ) I use the stable release and compile from source if lag is an issue ( which it usually isn''t ).

For my desktop and my laptop I use unstable. If things do break, they are usually fixed the same day. Overall, unstable is pretty damn awesome and you want it for sure if you''re using it as your desktop for the all the Gnome2 stuff, anti-aliased fonts, etc etc. For the label of testing/unstable it is very stable, and that''s with quite a lengthy experience of running both sources of multiple releases. Like anything though, draw your own conclusions by experiencing it for yourself


.zfod

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
RH and friends tend to release stuff to end-users that is untested and unstable like it is the norm,

I can tell you for a fact that this statement is FALSE. RH & friends actually test (to the best of their staffing and funding abilities) all elements that go into their releases and refreshes. They generally lag behind the bleeding edge in what they deliver (look at their supported kernels versus where the current development kernels are at). They tend to be a little ahead of Debian though because they are a tight knit group that can make blanket quick decisions about interoperability and inclusion/exclusion of certain technologies. There isn''t a time consuming decision making process like there is in Debian.

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