On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 11:24:43AM -0800, Dr. Jennifer Nussbaum wrote: > I am currently running Lenny on two laptops. I thought i had seen something > on this list about how, with Lenny close to release, the "lenny" repositories > are different from "testing", and if we want to keep up to date we should > switch to "testing" in sources.list. But the docs say that lenny is just a > symlink to "testing". > > Im not trying to be ultra-bleeding-edge, but im willing to trade some > stability for newer packages. I thought thats what i was doing with "lenny". > Should i switch to "testing" in sources.list, or am i confused? > > Jen >
Just in case you are still a little confused, here is my position. I'm a user, not a developer. I like software that works. That's why I use Debian. I've been through several transitions to a new release. This minimizes your surprises. I use these six steps in a continuing cycle, once through the cycle for each new release. You are now ready to 'execute' step 6. 1) Subscribe to this list so you can keep track of the ebb and flow of Debian. (Probably you already do this.) 2) The cycle begins with you running the stable version, but refer to it by its code name in your sources.list -- potato, sarge, etch, whatever. Upgrade from time to time to pick up bug fixes. 3) When you start noticing complaints on this list that stable has old outdated software that is way behind some other distribution, that is much more up to date, consider making a dist-upgrade to testing, but use the code name, not the word testing in sources.list. Maybe delay doing this until you see complaints about oldness that specifically mention features that sound interesting for software that you use. 4) If there are sprinkled in among these oldness complaints, other complaints about e.g. X-windows being broken in testing, of course stick with stable. 5) When you can set aside time to fiddle with new software for a while, make the transition (dist-upgrade) to testing (using the code name). (Even if the dist-upgrade is absolutely smooth and uneventful, you will want to spend some time playing with the new features. And there is a possibility that you will mess up something and take a while to recover.) 6) When the next release happens, nothing happens for you. You are already dist-upgraded to the new release. You already have the right words in you sources.list. You get to work on whatever you were planning to work on that day. Some time after the release of Lenny, the name of the next release after Lenny will become useful as a synonym of testing. Your first use of steps 1-5 will be in the transition to that release from Lenny. Hope this helps. -- Paul E Condon pecon...@mesanetworks.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
