Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.: > On Monday 02 November 2009 13:47:05 Celejar wrote: >> >> I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by 'fighting >> dependencies'. I run Sid, and while I occasionally have to hold back >> a few packages, and can't always do a complete, full upgrade, it's >> simply a matter of holding back a few packages until they get into sync >> again; I certainly don't have the skill to do anything particularly >> sophisticated with dependencies. > > That, among other things, is exactly what I mean by fighting dependencies. > Sometimes I am not happy with a package that is held back, which calls for > more dependency wrangling. Downgrade or upgrade something else, de-install > some software I'm not really using right now (like a Recommend or Suggest), > satisfy an OR dependency with a different package, or some combination of the > three. Keeping the number of packages I pull from > testing/unstable/experimental as minimal as possible results in more > (aptitude > safe-upgrade)s that "just work".
My sid safe-upgrades in sid usually "just work". I am a long-time sid
user (>5 years) and the current state (the LVM<->Gnome problem) is a
rare exception. I don't recommend running sid, but to be honest, it
almost always runs smoothly on machines I update daily.
It's a different beast when you upgrade only once a month. I have a
seldomly used and therefore irregularly updated machine which suffers
from problems more often. But that may just be my misguided perception
because the machine has an nVidia card. ;-)
Another reason for my "success" may be the fact that in the past I most
often found it easier to reinstall on certain occasions (disk exchange,
re-partitioning) than to restore from a backup (which in turn may be due
to the fact that most of the time I don't have a recent backup). My
installations never get really old. Now I finally use LVM, so I hope
these special occasions happen less often. :)
> Mixed systems are just as "supported" as running testing or unstable, which
> is
> to say, not officially. IME, they result in a system with the advantages of
> both stable and unstable.
Running testing/unstable might not be "supported", but that's what the
developers/maintainers are working at. If sid is broken, they fix it.
J.
--
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