Mix of stretch and Jessie

[WeLoveDebian]

Oh boy, not such a thread again!

The admins on these forums should make a huge pop-up appear as soon as a member register, saying:

"No. Don't even try it. There is NO way you're going to mix Stable with any other flavor of Debian and get out of it alive. Seriously, your life is in DANGER as soon as you do it".

[Randicus]

How many people would not read it?
How many people would read it and forget?

[WeLoveDebian]

Then pop a new message when the first gets closed:

"HA!! Thought you'd get rid of this message, eh sport?

Just remember: You shouldn't mix Debian Stable. Don't mix Stable with Testing. And don't mix Stable with sid, that's even worse.

DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! DON'T MIX!! "

[Randicus]

There is no cure for stupidity. People that refuse to read instructions and sticky posts will not read recurring messages.

[spacex]

I fully agree that the average user should not attempt to mix sources. But claiming that it can't be done is WRONG. I do it often without ever breaking anything. You just need to know what can be mixed, and how to pin it. That's all there is to it. Ubuntu PPA's can also be used with success, it depends on what the PPA's are for. A Icon-theme? No problems, just go for it. Any ill effects can easily be reversed.

Besides, providing you have decent backups, it's no problem to bork a install or two for the learning experience. It can also be fun to try and solve breakages manually. It's kind of like doing sudoku or puzzles. Very fun, as long as you do it in a safe enviroment and doesn't risk any vital or important data.

The best way to learn is by trying, and just go for it, even though the conservative debian users always would recommend the safe way of doing it. There is absolutely nothing to learn by doing it the safe way. It only proves that you can read a manual. Nope, follow your gut and go for it, and if it fails, always try to fix it before you reinstall. Because that's where the learning is. By fixing stuff yourself, instead of just following safe manuals and safe advice.

Just don't complaint when things go bad, because it comes with the territory. If you take risks, things will go wrong, but you will also occasitionally find new ways of doing things, despite any advice you might get from conservative users. Just remember, always backup before taking risks with your system. Also, it's a good idea to have a second or third install where you can try out experimental things before you implement then in a install that matters to you. In short, play and learn on a system where it doesn't matter if you bork it. But always keep your main install safe and stable.

[andre@home]

Spoilt milk this topic, why solve such problems while they need not to be there.... when you just use a stable or an unstable (at own risk) Debian..

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Ubuntu PPA's can also be used with success

... if you follow this guide:
https://wiki.debian.org/CreatePackageFromPPA

Hi ew!

Back on that old "mixing repos is fine" kick, eh?

[WeLoveDebian]

There's a reason why "Stable" is called Stable. It's not supposed to change, thus mixing with newer software is a risk that many can't take.
Sometimes even the most experienced user will break his/her system; not because they lack the skill, but because it simply can't be done just by pinning or whatever easy way there are.

Sure, it's fun, it's a good learning curve. But what is mostly present here are people who know nothing about what they're doing, know nothing about Debian and it's branches, and simply are mixing Stable with Testing (and sometimes even sid) just because they googled "how to get program x version x.xx on Debian Stable". They don't care about the efforts to make Stable an actual Stable release, they just care about that new program, that most of the times don't even have critical features they actually need.

So it's not that it can't be done. It *can* be done, assuming one has the minimum knowledge to at least read a few manual pages before going into grounds that he/she doesn't know.

In the end, Stabe should be stable, not stable/testing. It's dangerous. If the user wants newer software than the safest way to go is Sid (considering he/she cares about security upgrades coming in fast), or a mix between Testing/Sid.
The safest way to have newer software on Stable is to backport software, but there is always going to be cases where that's impossible (specially when libc6 is involved). In such cases, the user has to chose to either bork their Stable system at some point, or go Testing/sid.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

If the user wants newer software than the safest way to go is Sid

+1

[spacex]

Ubuntu PPA's can also be used with success

... if you follow this guide:
https://wiki.debian.org/CreatePackageFromPPA

Hi ew!

Back on that old "mixing repos is fine" kick, eh?

Yeah. Safe and stable equals boring. Which is fine on a production system or a office-pc, but people use Debian in other scenarios, and if it doesn't at all matter if a system gets borked, why not play with it, and learn from it?

If my practice was so bad, then I suppose I should be breaking my installs all the time. But I don't.

I don't say that just about anyone should be doing this, because most people will break or bork their system by doing this, and have no clue how to fix them. It would generate a massive amount of support-issues which could have been avoided if people didn't mix sources. So I fully understand why Debian don't want their users to behave like that.

And I do agree. Most people shouldn't be doing it, but there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be doing it. It's not like I'm ever going to create a support-thread in the Debian User Forums about how to fix a borked install as a result of my experiments with mixed-sources

[spacex]

If it's not a production machine, then why can't a beginner run testing? Why do some people on this forum think that they get to decide what others do with their computers?

Correct. 100% agree with you, as long as that beginner doesn't demand that someone should help him solve any mess that he/she might create. The reason why Debian don't want beginners to behave like that, is that it creates a huge need for support. It's requires a lot less support-resources to simply say, "NO, DON'T DO IT".

[ankscorek]

wow I never knew my question was so dumb to have a 3 page posts

thanks to spoon and spacex

spoon and spacex motivated me enough to bring the machine to a stable version and the negative motivations by the remaining fellow members was a good factor too...

In the process learnt new things..

thank you debian users..

Code: Select all

$uname -a
Linux debian 4.3.0-1-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 4.3.3-5 (2016-01-04) i686 GNU/Linux

Ahh yes it was no fresh install managed to recover by spacex comment on trying to remove the unstable libraries..

Thanks to all of you