On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:53:00 +0530 AP <worldwithoutfen...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:07 PM, Catalin Soare > <lolinux.so...@gmail.com> wrote:> Hello there! > > > Then, come back to Debian. Unless you choose any testing or > > non-stable variants, you will notice that it truly is stable and > > once setup, things Just Work (TM). > > Stable in what sense. Means we don't need to install anything again > for years? > Depends on what you need that's new. Stable in the sense that the software version is not changed, except for some frequently-updated workstation software such as web browsers and virus checkers. Nearly all other software is frozen at the version of about six months before release. Releases are occurring about every two years, and security support for the older version continues for another year. This is what you need for servers and business workstations. You don't want features to change unexpectedly, particularly if they may break something you need to use every day, where actual money may be involved. If the software does the job you want, it will still be doing that same job three years later. This may not be what you want as a leisure user, or even as a business user if you don't mind fixing things. If you need to use more modern software, such as a graphics program which gains new features every six months, then you will want to look at faster-evolving distributions. There are many of these, and quite a few are based on one of the other two Debian distributions. Debian Testing is the test bed for the next release of Stable. As such, the software alters pretty much daily until the freeze, which is about six months before the release of the next Stable. During that period, bugs are fixed, and when there are relatively few left, it is released. Not on a particular date, but when the bugs are fixed. Release happens when the green line here: http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/ pretty much hits zero, at least in terms of serious bugs. So the downside of using a more up-to-date distribution is more bugs, as you would expect. There is a third Debian distribution called Unstable, and it is. The software itself is fairly recent, and is newly-integrated into Debian, which brings further surprises. Unstable is never frozen or released, it evolves continuously. It evolves very quickly after a Stable release, and anything that survives for about ten days without serious problems gets moved to Testing, so both distributions are a bit hairy to use for the next six months. Neither are suitable for a beginner, so the recommendation is to try Stable. As others have said, it is possible to use newer Linux software in any of the distributions, you just have to take a bit of responsibility for maintaining it, as it won't be automatically updated. Sometimes you can use a Debian-compatible package, which has been made by the software authors and hasn't, for a range of reasons, yet been accepted into a Debian distribution. Sometimes you need to compile from source code, though this isn't especially difficult. If you do bring in outside software, you may need to do a little extra work, such as tracking down a few additional required packages, or adding a few file links. Once you've done a bit of this, and know where to look for help with problems, you might want to try Testing or Unstable. Bear in mind that almost any Linux distribution will have more problems than Stable, simply because the software is newer. I've used Unstable for leisure and business for nearly ten years now, during which time I've had a few disagreements with it and reinstalled twice when something was beyond my abilities to fix. But I've had similar problems with Windows, of which the customers only ever see what is effectively the Stable version, and it's a lot harder to fix things there. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20131126200431.768af...@jretrading.com
