[SlugLUG] Help Me Choose

[Matt Thrailkill]

This is why I like Debian too.  I got addicted to having things come
intelligently configured, and generally not breaking the rest of my
stuff.  In my view, Ubuntu is just Debian + extra desktop bits.  Back
when I switched, X.org was in the Ubuntu stable releases and not in
Debian unstable at all.

The one thing is that I kind of prefer the stable releases.  On a server
for example, I wouldn't want to run unstable, and I'd only use testing
if I was comfortable with it getting a good amount of security fixes and
not being in too severe flux.

On my desktop, I stick to Ubuntu releases because 6 months is usually
satisfactory for me.. although the last month or so, I start to pine for
things in the next release.  The main reason I stick to the stable
releases is because I'm generally not in the mood to fix any breakages
or hiccups.

It'd be neat if someone ran something like backports.org, for Ubuntu.
Something that aggressively backported the big-name neat things from the
next release, so I could use them without going whole-hog on a
testing/unstable upgrade.  AFAIK, something like that doesn't exist
right now.

On Fri, 2006-09-29 at 13:04 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> On Friday 29 September 2006 12:29, Rohan Sheth wrote:
> > So I am in need of some advice...the new Ubuntu Edgy looks promising
> > (including the new init system) but what is the point of waiting for
> > Ubuntu to release something that Debian is already on top of?  I like
> > to run somewhat bleeding-edge on my workstation (thus my gentoo
> > experience) so I thought I might jump ship over to Debian.  What I need
> > help with is deciding testing vs. unstable.  I realize that many use
> > unstable with great success but the "unstable" has me a little scared.
> > Any suggestions?  If a decision is made soon I hope to join the person
> > installing gentoo on his laptop tomorrow night @ baskin.
> 
> This is probably a good a time as any to announce my existence to the group 
> and share some of my Linux related thoughts.  First, I'm new to the Santa 
> Cruz area, having just moved down from Seattle to follow my GF who is 
> attending grad school.  I started running Linux for the first time while in 
> the dorms back in 2000.  My friend installed slackware on my aging Pentium 90 
> with a dual boot into Windows98.  Ah, good days...
> 
> In 2001 I, and several of my friends, made the slow and painful transition 
> from various distros (slackware/red hat/mandrake) to debian.  None of us have 
> ever looked back.  Since then, I've done system administration and web 
> development with the debian distro for various departments at the University 
> of Washington.  I've run debian on PPC architecture, three different laptops 
> (one Dell, two Toshiba), dozens of servers and desktops, and my plucky media 
> server.
> 
> I'll leave the Debian bashing to someone else on the list, because there are 
> usually plenty of detractors.  What I like about Debian is that it has nearly 
> every piece of software I could ever want configured by experts to work with 
> every other piece of software on the Debian system.  Whenever I have to hunt 
> down a bug fix for a problem I read "make sure you compile X with flag Y."  
> And without fail, Debian has done it for me.  Not only that...  but with many 
> bugs, if I wait a few days, the deb package will fix it for me.
> 
> After completeness comes consistency.  Regardless of how upstream feels 
> something should work, the debian packagers ensure the software conforms to 
> detailed Debian Policies.  This means that all services have an entry in 
> the /etc/init.d/ directory, conf files are properly stored in /etc/, 
> documents are in /usr/share/docs/PACKAGE/ and the crontab system is neatly 
> organized.  Once you learn how a piece of debian architecture works for 
> software X, you've learned how it works for 99% of what remains.
> 
> After consistency comes continuous.  I love that every day I run apt-get 
> dist-upgrade and everything gets a little better.  A handful of libraries, a 
> few base-system pieces, maybe even software I use on a daily basis.  I didn't 
> need to know a new version was released upstream, it just comes when it's 
> ready.  And, if I don't want to get the upgrades, I can turn them down.
> 
> To address the question about unstable/testing/stable and even, yes, 
> experimental:  Assume you've got package foo, and the current stable release 
> is foo-3.2.  Here's what you are likely to find in the four debian archives:
> 
> stable: foo-3.0-9
> testing: foo-3.2-2
> unstable: foo-3.2-8
> experimental: foo-3.3-1
> 
> First, note that stable is two releases behind current.  That's thanks to the 
> infamous debian release cycle.  I consider Debian releases to be more of a 
> political statement than anything else.  Yes, there are folks who only run 
> stable, god bless them, but I don't think that's the kind of stability most 
> people require.  (Lord only knows when Etch is going to be released...  
> debian-vote has three (maybe two) different general resolutions right how 
> which are part of a larger political fight.  Blah.  But even with all the 
> chaos among the development team, packages continue to get updated.)
> 
> Then you've got the differences in testing and unstable.  Note that there is 
> no version difference, but there is a difference in the number after the 
> dash.  That is the debian package number.  Each deb comes with a myriad of 
> stuff beyond the software itself to ensure conformance with the policies I 
> mentioned above.  So, in testing you've got 3.2, but it may not have the 
> latest wizbang debian feature.  Back in unstable, with -8, they've gone 
> through six debian packages in an effort to get wizbang "just right"(TM).  
> Once they figure it out, the unstable package will propagate up to testing.  
> Could be a week, could be a month.
> 
> Now, for 95% of the software, these debian package version differences are 
> rarely a problem.  But every now and then some debian developer will be 
> asleep at the switch, screw up some dependency, and then the next time you 
> apt-get dist-upgrade...  well, let's just say you might have a problem.  The 
> nature of that problem could be any number of things.  But over time you 
> learn how to fix stuff, revert packages, hold ones you know are "BAD."  I 
> think in my five+ years of debian I've only once had an upgrade that required 
> a boot disk to repair (some idiot screwed up glibc).
> 
> Lastly we've got experimental.  I happen to be a KDE guy and always need the 
> latest version.  So once KDE 4.0 is a bit more mature it will appear in the 
> experimental repository where I can explicitly grab it.  It might seriously 
> break stuff, but that's the price to pay to run ULTRA new software.  There 
> has been a debian package of the new cups system in experimental for more 
> than a year...  everytime I try it I break everything, so I end up reverting.  
> They'll figure it out eventually.
> 
> Okay, there is my two cents...  plus an additional buck fifty.  Sorry about 
> the verbosity of the post.  You'd never guess, but I'm actually a lawyer by 
> training[1].
> 
> Looking forward to meeting all of you at a meeting,
> Sean
> 
> [1] Full disclosure, I haven't heard about my bar results yet...  so I'm not 
> yet a lawyer, technically.
>