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[ReadMe] Running a development distribution

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This sub-forum is the dedicated area for the ongoing Unstable/Testing releases of Debian. Advanced, or Experienced User support only. Use the software, give, and take advice with caution.
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wizard10000
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[ReadMe] Running a development distribution

#1 Post by wizard10000 »

Running a development distribution is kind of a special challenge in Debian, so we've assembled a few tips that can make your experience much more rewarding. Debian Testing and Debian Unstable (codenamed Sid) are development distributions and the purpose of these distributions is to assist with Debian's development. Here are some resources that will help with installing, configuring and running a development distribution.

Documentation. We all love documentation! :)

Some helpful resources. First, Debian's installation guide. This is an in-depth look at Debian's installer, its options and what you can do with the installer -

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/

Choosing a Debian distribution - https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... ng.en.html

From Debian's wiki - sections on Debian Testing, Unstable and Experimental -

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperimental

Note that Debian Experimental is *not* a complete distribution and cannot be installed. You can pick packages from Experimental and install them but it'd be wise to expect that packages in Experimental may have issues of their own.

Next, more helpful resources.

You can find information about Debian packages and their dependencies at https://packages.debian.org

Debian's package tracker is at https://tracker.debian.org - here you can learn why a package may not have made it to Testing or Unstable yet and learn the history and/or challenges of just about any package.

Bug reports. Bug reports are critical to Debian (more on this later) but you can access Debian's bugtracker at https://bugs.debian.org

Mailing lists. These are an amazing resource and Debian has dozens of them - this is one way Debian developers and users communicate with each other and if one is running a development distribution you can often find out what the status of an upgrade might be by reading dev mailing lists. A couple of places to look -

https://lists.debian.org - this is the toplevel mailing lists interface.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel - the Debian developers mailing list would be a first stop if you're researching what developers are up to :)

How to help keep Sid (or Testing) from breaking your toys -

Some important things to remember about Debian's development releases. Testing is where the next stable release of Debian is assembled. On release day Testing will become the new Stable. Unstable (Sid) is a staging area for testing and there's a big difference between the two releases.

Since Sid is a staging area for Testing it's important to understand that not all of a metapackage will arrive in Sid at the same time - major releases like desktop environments, graphics toolkits and some programming languages can take one to several days or longer for all the components to make it into Sid. During this time Sid will be more than happy to break your toys if you're not paying attention during upgrades - this is where Debian's package tracker and dev mailing lists may come in handy.

Testing doesn't have this issue as all of a metapackages' components will be assembled before migration to Testing - but with Sid or Testing, if an upgrade doesn't look safe don't upgrade. If you try to upgrade and apt offers to remove half your system then the upgrade is probably not safe and you should cancel the upgrade and try again in a day or two.

And we can't have a discussion about Sid breaking your toys without mentioning Don't Break Debian.

Are development distributions secure?

Glad you asked :)

For the most part Debian's security team doesn't provide support for Testing or Unstable. Package maintainers provide upgrades to Sid and after a few days if there are no issues those upgrades migrate to Testing. This means that security upgrades will almost always land in Testing last.

Tools you may need to run a development distribution -

aptitude. This is personal preference but consider using aptitude for routine upgrades instead of apt. aptitude will stop you and offer solutions if what you're trying to do will cause breakage.

apt-listbugs hooks into apt and checks Debian's bugtracker to see if there are any serious or higher bugs filed against a package you're trying to install. This doesn't help much with a zero-day vulnerability but apt-listbugs will stop you and ask for input if someone's filed a serious or better bug against a package you're trying to install. Highly recommended.

apt-listchanges will display changelogs so you can read them - this is very helpful.

And again, if an upgrade doesn't look safe don't upgrade!

And last: Giving back to the community.

Please consider helping out where you can - those of us who can't code can still help support Debian by filing bug reports or lending a hand when end users have an issue.

Enjoy your development distribution!
we see things not as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin

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Re: [ReadMe] Running a development distribution

#2 Post by craigevil »

apt-listbugs hooks into apt and checks Debian's bugtracker to see if there are any serious or higher bugs filed against a package you're trying to install. This doesn't help much with a zero-day vulnerability but apt-listbugs will stop you and ask for input if someone's filed a serious or better bug against a package you're trying to install. Highly recommended.
First thing I do after installing apt-listbugs is change the settings so it shows Important and higher bugs. You get more crap but ever once in awhile
you run across something that is not good. More than once over the yrs apt-listbugs has saved my butt.
Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10apt-listbugs and add Important.
The line should look like this: AptListbugs::Severities "critical,grave,serious,important";

I would also suggest installing Timeshift along with a backup method to backup your /home. I use Pika-backup and Deja-dup. Backintime is another good backup package.

Apt-clone can be used to backup installed packages.(well when it works)

Reportbug is something everyone running Testing or Sid should have installed.

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