Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 08:12:49AM -0400, The Wanderer wrote: >> The same thing applies to those who track 'stable' by that name. Using >> the symbolic names for the releases, rather than the actual codenames, >> *is semantically different* and the tools *should treat it differently*. > > Using "stable" in your sources.list is idiotic, and you should not do > it. Ever.
i understand where you are coming from, but obviously i don't agree as i've been doing it for many years. > This is not a "use at your own risk" scenario, like using "testing". > That's OK for people who choose to accept the responsibility. > > Using "stable" is just a mistake. > > If you're suggesting that the behavior of the tools should change in > some way -- something I am *not* advocating -- then the bext change > would be to make them *reject* any sources.list line that uses "stable". > Inform the user that the use of that label is too dangerous, and that > they must select a specific release to track. no. that's breaking things that work fine for some people. if you keep your installation very simple there is a good chance you can do upgrades without too much fuss or bother. i just recently upgraded my stable partition and it was done without reading the release notes at all. i did have to change some lines in the apt sources list, but otherwise it all went as i would expect for it to go. on thing i do out of habit is only upgrade certain things first (apt, dpkg, core stuff) before i let the rest of the packages go in. sometimes i have to run through a few times but apt-get figures it out eventually or i have to use some flags to get broken packages fixed. my normal system runs about 2500 packages total and i don't do too many complcated things. my stable partition has many fewer packages and i don't do some things on it at all (if i add some package for testing i often remember to remove it and the dependencies so i'm not bloating it). songbird
