On Sat, 2006-05-20 at 22:44 +0300, Black Dew wrote: > > If I install Debian stable and have "stable" in the sources.list file, > > will updates keep happening, even across releases? I think it would be > > great it I never had to reinstall, yet could still have a completely > > up-to-date system. > > "stable" is just a pointer to the latest release. So if you put now > "stable" in sources.list you'd be running Sarge. > When Etch gets released, "stable" will point to Etch, so your system > will upgrade (more or less) automatically next time you run apt-get update. > Also if you add the security updates repository you will get critical > security updates between releases. > > > Also, is the same true for unstable and testing? > > For testing: yes > For unstable: the unstable "release" (Sid) doesn't have releases, your > system will just get new packages as soon as they are available > (sometimes causing major breakage :)) > > And yeah, it's one of the great things with debian - there is no need to > reinstall it whatever happens, you can always down/up-grade it to > whatever you want.
Thanks Andrew, Paul, hendrik, & Black Dew, for all the great information. Debian.org/releases/ explained the names (stable/testing/unstable) but not much else. I will probably follow stable unless the packages are all too old, then will jump to testing. This brings up something else: if I have "testing" in my sources.list file and replace it with "stable" (if I want to go back to stable), what will aptitude do during an upgrade or dist-upgrade? Will it down-grade packages or just not update them? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]