I have a friend who works as a system administrator that always says: Debian Stable --> Debian Server Debian Testing --> Debian Desktop Moderate Debian Unstable --> Debian Desktop Fast
Being Moderate and Fast the speed at you will eat new bugs. As time goes by, I'm more and more agree with him. Debian Stable should be enough for everyone, but... in practice only works for servers and very low demanding desktops / workstations. if you use fast moving software (for example, ham radio applications), or developing new software, or helps developing new software, your only option is to run ahead to testing / unstable. Packages versions in Stable are obsolete even on the very same launch day. The developer puts a new version, you download the sources, try to compile them, compilation failed, asks the developer why and the answer is always the same: Your put_any_library_here version is obsolete, please upgrade. So you are forced to move to testing / unstable. Another case is if you suffer a serious bug with stable, usually hardware support. Then, also your only option is to run ahead to testing / unstable and cross your fingers. In my case, suffering the big problems with Intel video cards the only option is to move to unstable and pray for every new kernel to be the one that solves the problem. I've read there will be no chace to get a working kernel with Intel cards until next 5.7 so now I'm on stable, which seems to be somewhat stable (only one chrash in the last 7 days). I activelly follow the development of some programs in diverse areas (ham radio, astronomy, emulators, etc), and new versions usually appears in unstable months after release. The more prominent example is the kernel itself. Current version is 5.5.7, but unstable still have 5.4.19. When the statibily of your system depends on a feature or bug solved in a new kernel version, this can be distressing. Even with all this, I still prefer to use Debian.
