Debian User Forums

When you stop comparing what is right here and now with what you wish were, you can begin to enjoy what is.
- Cheri Huber

Enjoy both and choose.

soaringowl2145 wrote:

Wheelerof4te wrote:
Sid right now is not a good idea right after new Stable release. I don't know about Arch, got used to .deb and stayed with .deb.

Once the first point release for Stretch is released, would that be a good time to do the upgrade? Also can you please explain why Sid is not a good idea right after a major release?

https://www.debian.org/releases/sid/

This distribution will never get released; instead, packages from it will propagate into testing and then into a real release.

A lot of packages have been put on hold in order to focus on Stretch's release. Now all those packages will migrate for the upgrades. Meaning, more chances for something to break. As for your first question, the answer is "not really".

soaringowl2145 wrote:Once the first point release for Stretch is released, would that be a good time to do the upgrade?

Sid is NOT an "upgrade." As has already been explained to you, it's a different beast entirely. Sid is about bug-hunting, not ShinyNewShit.

soaringowl2145 wrote: Also can you please explain why Sid is not a good idea right after a major release?

It's an artifact of Debian's release model. The development branches are always buggiest on either side of a freeze. The Wiki has more detail.

Although I have not used it (yet), I believe that Void Linux is worthy of consideration. I only mention that because it may suit your needs, and there's a good chance that you weren't aware of it (until now).

Phil

I'll use Arch Linux for the bleeding edge, Debian for the stability. Both great selections for their different goals.

Thanks for the responses!

I use Archlinux for more than 3 years with no problems and I can say it is very good distro.
Years ago I used Debian stable but because the outdated packages I tested the testing and unstable branch but at that time, I didn't understand how 'dangerous' dist-upgrade can be if you don't know what is going on. So after destroying my system, I returned to stable.

Right know, I use both Arch and sid on different computers and I can say they both works ok.
You have to be careful in dist-upgrade, reading which packages will mark as 'auto-remove'. There are times that it is better to only upgrade and wait 1-2 days so the dist-upgrade dependencies will set properly. (maybe I'm wrong here)
Right know I use 'apt upgrade' since this command looks better for my upgrades, and when there are non-upgraded packages, I use dist-upgrade with caution by reading which new package will install and which will mark as 'auto-remove'.

On the other hand, Arch is very good because their wiki is perfect and updated (something that debian doesn't have in their wiki site) and their forum is very active (but you have to know what is going on on your system).

In both cases, the end user MUST have the knowledge to fix their system and to know how they setup their system. That said, because when your system will brake, you are the one with broken system and you have to find the solution.

Last note, everything depends from the installed packages and their dependencies. For example, if you use gnome or kde, these desktops change their packages more frequent and in my experience they are more unstable than Debian stable. The same goes for Arch too, so I use simple desktops.

Edit: Arch has more updated packages than sid.

Another solid choice if you want an Arch-based distro is Manjaro. It's a lot easier to install than Arch, and it's reasonably up to date.

Wheelerof4te wrote:Another solid choice if you want an Arch-based distro is Manjaro. It's a lot easier to install than Arch, and it's reasonably up to date.

might want to reconsider Manjaro....they have their own set of problems:
http://allanmcrae.com/2013/01/manjaro-l ... stability/
http://allanmcrae.com/2013/10/compariso ... -handling/

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Manjaro- ... 8151.shtml
and it happened again a year later
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments ... red_again/

^That's too bad. I knew there has to be something wrong with them. Just felt too good to be true when Manjaro OTB recognized my Broadcom Wi-Fi chip.

It's back to Debian as my fallback OS then. Currently chugging on Windows 10. Felt bad about erasing it since it has personal sentimental value.