Michael Milliman wrote: > On 05/07/2017 04:19 PM, RavenLX wrote: >> On 05/07/2017 04:33 PM, cbannis...@kinect.co.nz wrote: >>> By the way, the words "unstable" "stable" as used in the distribution >>> names >>> don't mean likely to crash, --- it refers to the amount of changes >>> occurring, i.e. 'stable' has no new packages entering it, and >>> supposedly only >>> security updates, whereas "unstable" is unstable because there are many >>> changes occuring on a constant basis. >> >> Thank you for this info. I admit I always thought "unstable" meant it >> might still have bugs or still be in beta. I don't mind when things >> change frequently because sometimes this is how one can get new features >> in a newer version of a program. >> > Yeah, this is one of the main things sited as a drawback to the Debian > distribution....packages are sometimes a little older than in other > distributions. But, this is because the Debian developers spend so much > time making sure that they work properly in the distribution before they > are released in the repositories. As a result, things change a lot less > frequently. The benefit of this is that Debian is 'stable' in all > senses of the word...few serious bugs and system instability, and little > or no instability in what is part of the distribution. For many people, > especially businesses, this stability is important. For others, like > myself, I can afford a little more instability, and so can deal with any > instability in testing for the benefit of getting newer versions of the > packages and run Testing (Stretch).
> Many people also run Experimental (Sid) for the benefit of > bleeding-edge versions of software, but a lot of instability > (in all senses of the word). please note that Experimental is not the same as unstable (Sid). it is yet another repository and has no claims of usability at all. songbird
