I can't "check" repositories and update sources

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I tried the stable one and I've see that it has super old software

Yes, it does, that's why Debian provide a backports repository and also why MX Linux provide newer software versions based on Debian stable.

I've heard Debian testing is pretty stable

No, Debian testing is a development branch rather than a release and so can be expected to break on a boringly regular basis

See also http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 2&p=655783

[bw123]

4. Seems a bit difficult to fix Debian when you mess it up.

Yeah it can be, the idea is not to mess it up in the first place. I think you're determined to start on testing, that's fine. The best thing you can do is read documentation.
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... .html#s3.1

How did you try find the two programs you wanted? Debian probably has just about everything you would want. You might not need outside repos, source, or ppa but they can work if you are careful.

Code: Select all

$ apt search pdfmod
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
pdfmod/stable 0.9.1-8 all
  simple tool for modifying PDF documents

pdfmod-dbg/stable 0.9.1-8 all
  simple tool for modifying PDF documents -- debugging symbols

$ apt search pdfshuffle
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
pdfshuffler/stable 0.6.0-8 all
  merge, split and re-arrange pages from PDF documents

[arzgi]

3. use stable Debian: here I am unsure since I tried the stable one and I've see that it has super old software and I've heard Debian testing is pretty stable

As an Ubuntu user you may see that Debian has 'super old' software. I never used Ubuntu (well, 2 hours when it was relased), to me those packages are tested against bugs,

Testing, it's name tells it all, this is the stage, where that bug hunting happens, what usually is not in other distros. If you prefer stability, stay away from testing. If you search the forum, you would find so many posts about bugs in testing packets, or Buster as many call it.

A few weeks ago we compared on Debian IRC channel how many packets are available in stable Debian, mean was around 56 000. Propably about half are librarises, but still there are thousands of packets to choose from. You can do almost anything if you try at least a portion of those.

I've used pdfshuffler for years, pdfmod is also in Debian repo, as been showed in previous post. If you are going to use Debian, it's good to learn apt and aptitude, which are command line package managers. For example, here I search packages starting with pdf:

Code: Select all

aptitude search ^pdf | less

aptitude and less are Debian programs, which have to be installed before using, search is aptitude command, ^ means starting with next word, which in this case is pdf, | is a pipe, with transmits the output from command as input to next program, here less, which is a pager.
Output:

Code: Select all

p  pdf-presenter-console - multi-monitor presentation tool (ala Keynote) for PDF files
v  pdf-viewer - 
v  pdf.js - 
p  pdf.js-common - Portable Document Format (PDF) viewer - common files
p  pdf2djvu - PDF to DjVu converter
p  pdf2htmlex - Converts PDF to HTML while retaining most formatting
p  pdf2svg - converts PDF documents to SVG files (one per page)
p  pdfchain - graphical user interface for the PDF Tool Kit
p  pdfcrack - PDF files password cracker
p  pdfcube - PDF document viewer with 3D effects
p  pdfcube-dbg - PDF document viewer with 3D effects - debug symbols
p  pdfgrep - search in pdf files for strings matching a regular expression
v  pdfjam - 
p  pdfminer-data - PDF parser and analyser (encoding data)
p  pdfmod - simple tool for modifying PDF documents
p  pdfmod-dbg - simple tool for modifying PDF documents -- debugging symbols
v  pdfpc - 
p  pdfposter - scale and tile PDF images/pages to print on multiple pages
p  pdfresurrect - tool for extracting/scrubbing versioning data from PDF documents
p  pdfsam - PDF Split and Merge
p  pdfsandwich - Tool to generate "sandwich" OCR pdf files
p  pdfshuffler - merge, split and re-arrange pages from PDF documents
i  pdftk - tool for manipulating PDF documents
p  pdftk-dbg - tool for manipulating PDF documents (debugging symbols)
v  pdftohtml - 
p  pdftoipe - converts arbitrary PDF file to XML file readable by Ipe

As showed, there are ways to install Ubuntu packages to Debian. But if you do this, IMHO it is not stable anymore, and Debian security support covers only packages available in Debian repo.

I know many books and thesis statements written using stable Debian. I don't know what made you think Debian might be better. for some Ubuntu is better choice.

EDIT: Temporary blockage in memory, changed 'errors' to bugs, thanks Hallvor!

[Hallvor]

Stable means that it changes very little, not that it is bug free. The first part makes it ideal for a production system.
Testing means... testing. There is nothing stable about it in any sense. It changes a lot, and sooner or later it will break your system. It is not meant for production systems.

If you must have the latest software, Ubuntu is a good compromise between stable and recent.

[arzgi]

Stable means that it changes very little, not that it is bug free.

Stable changes close to nothing. Major bugs are fixed during testing, but stable's bug count rises continously the time it is supported. Debian bugs are public, easy to check.

From Debian FAQ:'Stable is rock solid. It does not break and has full security support. But it not might have support for the latest hardware.'

I've been using stable soon 20 years, and remember only 2 times, when some stable package I've been using went broke. Both from the same reason, hard coded web address changed.