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should I run unstable?

User discussion about Debian Development, Debian Project News and Announcements. Not for support questions.
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Struth
Posts: 139
Joined: 2013-05-22 18:39

Re: should I run unstable?

#21 Post by Struth »

I'm no debian expert, I'm fairly new to running straight debian but I am familiar with deb based distros. I've also run other more "advanced" distros in the past (I ran arch for about a year). I find wheezy is too out of date for my tastes, and I've been thinking about upgrading to sid.
My system has intel graphics and needs no proprietary driver so I don't have to worry about binary blobs breaking on me or anything.

How unstable does sid tend to be? Would I expect constant bugs/regressions, or just the more occasional ones? I have no problem running into the occasional bug and reporting them as long as it doesn't happen *too* often :) how stable it it compared to say, arch linux?
"I run Debian unstable on my laptop and most of my servers. I have one production web server that runs Debian stable instead, but mostly I can deal with any day-to-day glitches that come up using Debian unstable. I’ve used nothing else since 1996."
http://joey.hess.usesthis.com/

In other words:. Unstable is usually very stable.
Make a backup too and you are ready to go. Perhaps you will never need the backup. But if you need it restoring is done in 15 minutes. Install apt-listbugs too. Upgrade and dist-upgrade as often as possible. Get the head in a window manager and in the basic command line solutions if X is ever gone alltogether.
If folks in this thread are not able to doesn't mean it's hard, only that they are not able to. However their post count may be. Perhaps they are too busy with high-five?
If you want to then you can run it It's that easy. And if you consider yourself a pro and make a living with computing, then you should be able to run it.

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dasein
Posts: 7680
Joined: 2011-03-04 01:06
Location: Terra Incantationum

Re: should I run unstable?

#22 Post by dasein »

Gee. I wonder who that could be. :roll:

vbrummond
Posts: 4432
Joined: 2010-03-02 01:42

Re: should I run unstable?

#23 Post by vbrummond »

If folks in this thread are not able to doesn't mean it's hard, only that they are not able to.
Do you even lift bro?
However their post count may be. Perhaps they are too busy with high-five?
Too busy with real life to fix broken init or hear someone complain on forums about broken init.
If you want to then you can run it It's that easy.
This advice was already given.
Always on Debian Testing

Struth
Posts: 139
Joined: 2013-05-22 18:39

Re: should I run unstable?

#24 Post by Struth »

"This advice was already given."

Sure, but then the thread went south by all kind of chat by the staff
- that's probably of higher value than repeating a correct advice

init is broken? Not here. Never has been.

confuseling
Posts: 2121
Joined: 2009-10-21 01:03

Re: should I run unstable?

#25 Post by confuseling »

dasein wrote:
confuseling wrote:You ever run Arch?
I did. For a full month many years ago. I really wanted to like it. But, like you, I felt like it was always just a bit harder and more cumbersome than it needed to be. (Plus, back in those days, Arch didn't have signed packages, and seemed utterly resistant to the idea for reasons I could never fathom.)
I think if it were sold as a learning distro it would be good.

But a policy of "no automatic configuration, even if automatically configuring this X has been perfected" is logically indefensible to me. Unless of course you're putting up roadblocks to keep the newbs out (besides which, they seem to state this as a policy, but they certainly don't apply it consistently).

I prefer Debian's method of keeping the newbs out - make the distro comparatively simple, but be needlessly rude to them on the forum. :mrgreen:
The Forum's search box is terrible. Use site specific search, e.g.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A ... terms+here

vbrummond
Posts: 4432
Joined: 2010-03-02 01:42

Re: should I run unstable?

#26 Post by vbrummond »

Struth wrote:init is broken? Not here. Never has been.
And if it is, joe user will probably not be happy. I guess at best case it will be a learning experience for them. At least it is easy to bypass init problems on Debian.

Anyway, not the point. `Insert name of unforeseen problem caused by sid upload here`. I get a bad vibe from you, so I won't be replying to you again.
Always on Debian Testing

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dasein
Posts: 7680
Joined: 2011-03-04 01:06
Location: Terra Incantationum

Re: should I run unstable?

#27 Post by dasein »

vbrummond wrote:I get a bad vibe from you, so I won't be replying to you again.
Smart move. There are telltale signs that this is a newly created alt-account from a notorious troll.

Save time. Click here: http://forums.debian.net/ucp.php?i=zebra&mode=foes

Struth
Posts: 139
Joined: 2013-05-22 18:39

Re: should I run unstable?

#28 Post by Struth »

Depends if you want good vibes or if you want to learn how debian works. Both of you.
Working for this, working for that, making certificates and giving recommendations. Clowns with no clue.
Vibe on now (hush, hush, go and run for one of your nannies).

Randicus
Posts: 2663
Joined: 2011-05-08 09:11

Re: should I run unstable?

#29 Post by Randicus »

dasein wrote:Smart move. There are telltale signs that this is a newly created alt-account from a notorious troll.

Save time. Click here: http://forums.debian.net/ucp.php?i=zebra&mode=foes
I highly doubt it is nadir. The English level is a bit too high and the prose style is unlike his.

bwat47
Posts: 34
Joined: 2013-03-17 22:33
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: should I run unstable?

#30 Post by bwat47 »

Thanks for the replies guys :) I think I will stay with wheezy and hope that backports are enough for me. And I can always move to testing or sid later if I decide to. I care more about having applications up to date then the DE (for now I actually prefer gnome 3.4 to newer versions, less buggy)
dasein wrote:
Particularly in the FOSS world, where regression testing is all but nonexistent, an "upgrade" is often-as-not nothing more than trading rusty old bugs for shiny new bugs.
Agreed. Gnome seems especially bad when it comes to this. They keep releasing "stable versions" with very obvious and severe bugs. For example gnome 3.8:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=696882. Nearly every GTK 3 application would have bizarre and incredibly annoying behavior, empathy would randomly resize to be super wide while I was using it, most apps would never remember their size and open in a tiny window. I can't fathom how something like this ever made it into a final release.

There's also a bug in gnome 3.8 where fairly often nautilus will crash gnome shell when its opened, and sometimes it even totally crashes gnome forcing you to log out, and its still not fixed.

And gnome 3.6 was released with a massive memory leak that was never fixed (its semi-fixed in 3.8 ), where every time you click on a something in the top panel the memory usage would go up 1-3mb and never get released, I could easily get gnome-shell to up to a gb of usage after clicking it for a few minutes in my testing.

I always torn between loving to run the latest software, but hating the apparent lack of any testing. of course any software has bugs and its impossible to catch them all before release, but releasing with severe usability and stability bugs like that is pretty ridiculous :/

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dasein
Posts: 7680
Joined: 2011-03-04 01:06
Location: Terra Incantationum

Re: should I run unstable?

#31 Post by dasein »

bwat47 wrote:I think I will stay with wheezy and hope that backports are enough for me.
Stable+backports is a winning combination, in my experience. That said, it will take some time for anything to find its way to Wheezy backports. There are only so many hours in a day, and sid hasn't gotten any real love in almost a year.
bwat47 wrote:...releasing with severe usability and stability bugs like that is pretty ridiculous :/
As any GNOME dev (or even Bill Gates) could tell you, those aren't bugs; they are features you just haven't learned to appreciate.

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