Debian User Forums

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You have much to learn, grasshopper...

http://debian-handbook.info/browse/stab ... cycle.html

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Jessie is being made into Stable. It'll probably be released early 2015.

If you want a distro with new packages, Debian Stable is a terrible choice though.

Does that answer your question?

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dbass81 wrote:Yeah, I read that.

Then go back and read it again (and again, if necessary) until you understand Debian's release cycle.

Debian Testing is transformed into Debian Stable once every 3 years or so, once all the RC bugs have been squashed. That transformation takes months to accomplish.

If Debian offends your keen sense of software fashion, maybe try Arch. They are super kewl and trendy. Added bonus: with Arch, you get to brag that your computer feels so much faster.

dasein wrote:If Debian offends your keen sense of software fashion, maybe try Arch. They are super kewl and trendy.

dbass81 wrote:Wheezy's kernel and packages are just too old to make a usable system

Millions of people would disagree with you. But thanks for posting such a ridiculous statement. It gave me a chance to smile today.

If you want new and shiny, run Ubuntu. They kick out a new version every 6 months, ready or not. And it's based on Debian Unstable, so it has the latest and shiniest packages. Lots of bugs, crashes a lot, but at least it's new. And shiny. And purple, the last time I looked, which was admittedly a few years ago.

dbass81 wrote:

confuseling wrote:Jessie is being made into Stable. It'll probably be released early 2015.

If you want a distro with new packages, Debian Stable is a terrible choice though.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, this is exactly my point. I'm glad Jessie is being made stable. I just didn't know the timeline. Wheezy's kernel and packages are just too old to make a usable system, although I still run it on my server because all I really need is proftpd and squid3 on it.

The kernel has little to do with building newer packages, but much to do with hardware. You can run a newer kernel on wheezy with a few mouse clicks. Almost all packages can still be backported to a stable Wheezy base, plus there's a workaround to run Steam on Wheezy.

How about checking out MX 14 for proof of this? http://mepiscommunity.org/mx

If you aren't happy with the current stable, then you got a few options. You can upgrade to testing or unstable, but you say that it breaks for you, and that you aren't able to handle it. Well, then you need to qualify yourself, and that means to read and study a little bit. If you don't want to do that, then you could always run a debian-based distro that tracks testing/unstable and does everything for you.

Then of course, using backports are also an alternative, but it can be confusing if you don't want to educate yourself about how it works.

As to why something breaks both in testing and unstable, it's because sometimes the same versions of a package is in both. Testing isn't supposed to be 100% stable, so it happens that packages are moved into testing before they are stable. Stable is stable, don't expect anything else to be.... stable.

maybe it's just me and my specific machines, arch i386
but testing seems more volatile then unstable, ATM
geeez

sgosnell wrote:... but at least it's new.

Sorry but I gotta disagree! Booted up the recently released 14.04 live DVD a few days ago and it looked just exactly like the last release I saw.

Spent all of 5 minutes with it and did not see the need to look any further.

acewiza wrote:

sgosnell wrote:... but at least it's new.

Sorry but I gotta disagree! Booted up the recently released 14.04 live DVD a few days ago and it looked just exactly like the last release I saw.

Spent all of 5 minutes with it and did not see the need to look any further.

Agreed. I took it a bit further. I always have free partitions ready to test new distros, so I installed it. Spent a few hours with it, but there was absolutely nothing new worth mentioning. A very boring Ubuntu-release. I removed it, and also took Xubuntu 14.04 for a spin, and that was better, but still, nothing exciting at all. 14.04 seems redundant to me.

llivv wrote:maybe it's just me and my specific machines, arch i386
but testing seems more volatile then unstable, ATM
geeez

Fixes comes quicker to unstable, so your impression is often correct.

I personally use debian stable for most use cases. To be honest, the main reason is I just get annoyed always having to update software and I'm lazy. I wish I had a more sophisticated answer . There are some instances where I need newer packages, so on a few of my PC's I keep a separate testing/sid image, mainly for work. On the other hand, I've never experienced breaking due to an upgrade, and I've been on testing/sid for a very long time. Have you read the documentation on the differences in the setup with the unstable channel?