Suggestion: Support stable/unstable conversion (Page 1 of 4)

This is an interesting topic, thank you for raising it.

At the moment, the plan is to try and produce something stable(ish) based on Squeeze. As you are aware, it should be possible to work with that by itself by changing the sources. I have had some thoughts about producing some Sid based images, but they really are only thoughts at the moment. I would be interested to know if anyone else has had any similar thoughts.

Here is my AntiX sources.list to illustrate what I'm talking about:

# Note:If you want maximum stability, only use the stable repos.
# If you want to install kde3.5, you MUST only use the stable repos.

# Mepis8
deb ftp://ftp.mepis.com/mepis/ mepis-8.0 main 

# Debian
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free 
#deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free 
#deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free 
 
# mplayer
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org stable main non-free
#deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org testing main non-free

# Mepis Community Main, Restricted, and Test Repos
#deb http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/repo/ mepis8cr main non-free
#deb http://restricted.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/repo/ mepis8cr restricted restricted-non-free
#deb http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/ mepis8cr test
#deb http://restricted.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/ mepis8cr test-restricted 

# opera
#deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ lenny non-free

# virtualbox
#deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lenny non-free

# liquorix kernels
#deb http://liquorix.net/debian/ sid main

###### Debian Unstable/Sid/sidux ##########
###### Use at your own risk! ########
#deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
#deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org unstable main non-free
#deb http://sidux.com/debian/ sid main contrib non-free firmware fix.main fix.contrib fix.non-free

I have also found the smxi.org script very, very useful when transitioning to Sid.

If I've understood the process correctly, the "testing" release, currently Squeeze, is frozen towards the end of its evolution and becomes "stable". At that point a new "testing" is forked off from Squeeze, given a new name and gradually moved away, until maybe a year or two later it becomes the next "stable". So Squeeze at the moment since it's nearly ready to go "stable" is pretty reliable already. Likewise, the new "testing" will be solid just after it forks off from Squeeze, since it will be basically the same, and also when it's ready for stablehood in a couple of years, or whenever. Does that mean that "testing" is at its most unreliable roughly half-way through the development cycle, between those two points? Just how unstable is it then? If it's not too bad, then staying with "testing" instead of sticking with one named release could be the best option, as it would avoid the need for periodic upheavals.

On the other hand, I seem to remember reading somewhere that "testing" didn't get very thorough security updates, at least compared with "stable"...

Last edited by johnraff (2010-03-13 16:58:44)

Testing is most "unstable" (in the Debian sense of the word, "rapidly changing," not "buggy, unreliable, beta software" because Debian is never that!) shortly after a Stable release. All the updates that were kept back due to the testing freeze start to move from Unstable to Testing. But they are strategic about it, for example I noticed last time that they kept the Lenny kernel in Testing for quite some time after Lenny release, then jumped several versions. I guess they figure there's no point in "testing" kernels that have zero chance of making it into the next stable? I don't know.

Here's what the Debian wiki FAQ (http://www.debian.org/security/faq) says about Testing security:

Security patches do enter Unstable first, by definition, before they trickle down to Testing. I know that some hard-core Debian users run mixed testing/unstable systems for this (and other) reasons. (It is not hard to use apt-pinning to run a testing system plus some extras from unstable, and I'm sure there will be discussion threads on this exact  topic in good time.) I doubt it is something a typical home user should worry about, but I would not personally run, say, a bank's server, on Debian Testing.

Last edited by snowpine (2010-03-13 17:29:49)

Leave the final release of statler at Squeeze. For the adventurous ones a simple edit of sources allows them to venture on and keep the release rolling. Heck, a 'convert to Testing' script could even be written for this task

I would rather not use stable/testing/unstable names. A different naming system highlights that it is a specific respin of the main distro. For example, Mint uses its own naming system and no one gets confused about what base it is using for each release.

Personally I would prefer a rolling unstable release, but one of the beauties of Debian is that you can just change the repo names in your sources and have whatever you want. So I'd say that perhaps a non-rolling Squeeze release makes sense as the default, but only once it becomes Stable. I wouldn't be surprised if breakage increased in the run-up to making it the new stable release this year.

Main I'd prefer to be pretty stable and I wouldn't mind a simple script for switching to a rolling release

I was just thinking ... we should probably start hanging around in the Debian Forums, as well. 
I use Debian 'testing'-Xfce ... so I'm already a member.

Debian User Forums   >>   http://forums.debian.net/index.php

You know, just to get the 'feel' for Debian stable/testing/sid ... IMHO

Last edited by vrkalak (2010-03-18 20:41:36)

Why would we want a rolling release, we'd lose the fun then of installing and configuring CrunchBang 11 "Waldorf" when it's ready!   - come on Philip get on it!

No but seriously I love the idea of the antiX- style source selection.  I'd look forward to mucking about with this regardless of whether there's any real benefit to it or not.

That is correct. "testing" is rolling release and "squeeze" is not.

No need to hurry, Squeeze will be testing for some time still (I'd guess half a year +/-).

a.

I've been reading all of this stable vs testing stuff and am curious to know what exactly people mean by things like
"If you're after stabilty stick with stable, if you don't mind the odd breakage then go for testing."

Are these "breakages" major things that could cause me to to lose files, need to reinstall the OS, etc? Or are they minor nuisances like wallpapers getting screwed up, sporadic freezing of aplications,  etc?

I suppose the question is one of relative scale. I recognize that such "breakages" are unpredictable events, but the question is posed to those who have used Debian in the past, as I have zero experience with it.

Also, many thanks to all of you Alpha testers. I'm currently using my #! system to write my graduate school thesis and thus can't participate until it's done.