Dangers of subscribing to proposed and backport updates?

[humphreybc]

Hi I am on 8.10 and as always I like having the latest in software updates, so I am thinking of subscribing to the backport and proposed software channels under sources. Is this a good idea? Are there any dangers involved?

Thankyou

[philinux]

Click the backports link below.

I would not enable proposed myself on your main machine.

[humphreybc]

Click the backports link below.

I would not enable proposed myself on your main machine.

Thanks for that. I guess "proposed" sounds more reliable and stable than "unsupported!"

[mcduck]

"Proposed" is a testing repository. New packages go to proposed for couple of weeks, so people can test them. If it seems that they are working fine, they are moved to backports or some other normal repository.

So you should only enable the proposed repository if you intend to test packages. You'll get the same packages from other repositories as soon as they are confirmed to not cause problems.

("unsupported" simply means that Canonical doesn't provide paid support for those packages.)

[philinux]

Proposed is definitely not reliable. LOL.

-Proposed is the testing area for -updates.
A number of people must give positive feedback on these packages before they are allowed into -updates. This repository is recommend to ONLY interested in helping to test updates and provide feedback. Since they are in effect testing updates, there is a higher chance of defective updates in this repository.
i.e. breakage.

[humphreybc]

:) Thankyou

[barbolanero]

Unless you really want to help testing DON'T enable proposed!! I had a terrible experience. I've been using ubuntu for about a year and a half, and when I just installed ubuntu a friend of mine enabled the proposed repository. About a month ago an update broke about everything in my main Pc, so I had a terrible time in recovering everything and had to finish doing a clean install. Though I did learn a valuable lesson.;)