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mamamia88
January 11th, 2010, 03:34 PM
is it much more unstable than debian stable?

juancarlospaco
January 11th, 2010, 03:38 PM
Yes...

mamamia88
January 11th, 2010, 03:41 PM
really? i need to replace xubuntu on my netbook because it keeps crashing and was thinking of going with either debian testing or stable. i like the idea of testing because then it's a rolling release with newer packages

mdmarmer
January 11th, 2010, 03:43 PM
see here http://sidux.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2508&highlight=realms+debian

I have had no problems. I run lxde on debian testing. The smxi script will be very helpful for you if you want to run debian testing. http://techpatterns.com http://smxi.org irc on oftc #smxi or #linux-smokers-club

Mike

cascade9
January 11th, 2010, 03:47 PM
'Testing' is pretty stable. Of course, its not going to be as stable as 'Stable', but its still very stable IMO. I've used it on and off for a while, and never had any major stability issues.

Testing is a lot more breakable than stable though....

mamamia88
January 11th, 2010, 03:49 PM
you think sidux would run on a netbook?

snowpine
January 11th, 2010, 03:50 PM
Debian Testing is the "release candidate" for the next Debian Stable release (currently Squeeze). So it is by definition less stable than Debian Stable. (In my experience, however, Debian Testing is more stable than any Ubuntu release, certainly fine for the average desktop user, maybe not for a mission-critical server.)

snowpine
January 11th, 2010, 03:50 PM
you think sidux would run on a netbook?

Of course, why wouldn't it? ;)

mamamia88
January 11th, 2010, 03:56 PM
don't know why it wouldn't run but figured since it debian unstable made stable it might not be the best choice for someone looking for a stable os.

snowpine
January 11th, 2010, 04:01 PM
don't know why it wouldn't run but figured since it debian unstable made stable it might not be the best choice for someone looking for a stable os.

I agree; Debian Unstable is a terrible choice if you're looking for a stable OS. I would recommend Debian Stable if you want the most stable.

slakkie
January 11th, 2010, 04:07 PM
is it much more unstable than debian stable?

In a way yes. But I have to admit, I find Debian unstable/testing really stable. Ubuntu development release snapshots are more likely to b0rk.

mamamia88
January 11th, 2010, 04:09 PM
so if all i care about is having the latest firefox, the latest open office, and the latestflash player installed how hard would it be to just upgrade manually on debian stable?

slakkie
January 11th, 2010, 04:13 PM
so if all i care about is having the latest firefox, the latest open office, and the latestflash player installed how hard would it be to just upgrade manually on debian stable?

On stable, have a look at the backports and/or compile it yourself:



# Backports
deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free

deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org lenny main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://www.debian-multimedia.org lenny main contrib non-free

snowpine
January 11th, 2010, 04:23 PM
so if all i care about is having the latest firefox, the latest open office, and the latestflash player installed how hard would it be to just upgrade manually on debian stable?

"The latest" and "most stable" are mutually contradictory. You should think hard about what your top priorities are. I find that Ubuntu is an excellent compromise between relatively up to date and relatively stable (it fills this niche better than any of the Debians), but your mileage may vary. :)

mamamia88
January 11th, 2010, 04:29 PM
my main priorities are stability and security. if i have to upgrade a few applicatioins individually i will do

Xbehave
January 11th, 2010, 04:29 PM
On stable, have a look at the backports and/or compile it yourself:
If it's just a few apps couldn't you just pull them in from testing?

cascade9
January 11th, 2010, 04:33 PM
From what I've heard, mixing 'stable' and 'testing/unstable' is a bad, bad idea.

Not to say its not possible.

It would be eaiser, and safer, to just backport or d/l them and compile (if you had to) yourself like slakkie said.

slakkie
January 11th, 2010, 05:24 PM
If it's just a few apps couldn't you just pull them in from testing?

Yes, you could, but it is considered bad practice to do so (although I also do it... *giggle*). But if the package is in backports, I would prefer that over mixing stable with testing.

mdmarmer
January 11th, 2010, 05:51 PM
You could also look at Mepis
http://www.mepis.org http://www.mepislovers.org
Mepis is KDE based on debian stable with some newer packages. There is a beta .iso available with KDE 4.

They have a community repository which has newer versions of many packages.

Mike

ssam
January 11th, 2010, 06:12 PM
the 'stable' bit refers to things not changing. if you run debian stable, then you only get security and serious bug fixes.

you might find that debian unstable crashes less, because it has a much never version of xorg, or kernel or whatever, that fixes some bugs.

Zoot7
January 11th, 2010, 07:06 PM
I find Debian Testing to be pretty solid bar a few minor glitches here and there. My preferred option is to run purely Testing with a few packages pulled in from Unstable. It gives a good balance between being fairly up to date, rolling and "stable" IMO.

"Sid" is the one to avoid. From the Debian Site:

"sid" is subject to massive changes and in-place library updates. This can result in a very "unstable" system which contains packages that cannot be installed due to missing libraries, dependencies that cannot be fulfilled etc. Use it at your own risk!

koenn
January 11th, 2010, 07:21 PM
so if all i care about is having the latest firefox, the latest open office, and the latestflash player installed how hard would it be to just upgrade manually on debian stable?

depends on whether those versions' dependencies can be satisfied from "stable" or not. If not, you'd also have to upgrade their dependencies, and you start risking incompatibility with already installed packages.

Project PWNED
January 11th, 2010, 07:44 PM
really? i need to replace xubuntu on my netbook because it keeps crashing and was thinking of going with either debian testing or stable. i like the idea of testing because then it's a rolling release with newer packages

Do a server install of Ubuntu, install OpenSSH server and install IceWM or IceWM-lite as your Window manager. This should be more stable for you. I was a long-time Debian user (since 2.0.36 kernel) and I like Ubuntu better for the better drivers/packages than what Debian stable has offered.

Hallvor
January 11th, 2010, 07:45 PM
so if all i care about is having the latest firefox, the latest open office, and the latestflash player installed how hard would it be to just upgrade manually on debian stable?

It depends of you want a very stable system, or if you can handle a little instability. If you need the newest - anything - Debian stable is a bad choice. (There is a backports repository where you can get some newer applications, though.)

You could run Debian testing - rolling release and newer packages, but you need to be a little more knowledgable.

A third choice is Debian unstable where packages are very frequently updated, before they are moved to testing if they meet certain criteria. But unstable is not recommended for noobs either.

Zoot7
January 11th, 2010, 07:53 PM
so if all i care about is having the latest firefox, the latest open office, and the latestflash player installed how hard would it be to just upgrade manually on debian stable?
If those three are all you care about then yes you can simply install the .deb packages from both the Adobe site and Openoffice.org site, you won't find them in the repos though. Firefox is just a case of grabbing the tarball from the Mozilla site.
But in general as the others have said, Stable isn't the best choice if you want to be relatively up to date.


If it's just a few apps couldn't you just pull them in from testing?
Yes, but most Debian users (myself included) recommend you grab the source from the testing repos and compile it against Stable rather mixing Testing and Stable.