On Tue, Jan 23, 2007 at 12:16:46PM -0600, Kevin Monceaux wrote: > > > You sound like you are experienced enough that you might think about > > running "sid", "unstable" debian. Its does break now and then, but really > > keeps up very well. > > That sounds like it might be a good option.
Andrei answered all your ?'s, just a couple points of advice.
if you head for sid, start out with etch for a bit just to get
comfortable before you move up. as Andrei said you can move from
stable all the way to sid in one move, but its oft-times a big move
fraught with unforseen pitfalls and the possibility of gobs of cruft
hanging around. So, if you head that route, I'd do it starting with
"etch", put in some intensive time getting used to the system
(backporting hercules from sid might be enough of an intro to get you
into it). Then make the move from etch up to sid before the release
gets much farther on as the bridge between etch and sid will only get
longer with time.
> Can one switch from one
> version to another, from Etch to Sid for example, by simply updating
> sources.list and running an update/upgrade? I do like the "rolling update"
> feature some distribution, such as Arch, have.
yes, the upgrade is as simple as you've put it, though you'd want to
use dist-upgrade instead of upgrade (dist-upgrade allows apt to remove
packages, instead of just upgrading packages: man apt,
apt{itude,-get,.conf}).
stable doesn't really have "rolling updates" as I think you are using
it. testing does, though it is more intermittment than a true rolling
update. Also, the rules that define how packages move from unstable into
testing means that if a package breaks in testing it can be several
days or more before a fix arrives. Also, as testing gets closer to
release, it rolls less and less and finally freezes for release. For
truly rolling updates, sid is the way to go. There is a constant
stream of upgrades coming into sid. Breakage is definitely more likely
than in the others, but because of sid's fluid nature, the breakage
tends to fix very quickly. I've seen major breakages, like a kernel
upgrade that won't boot due to problems building the initrd that have
been resolved within a day or so. So running sid means you have to pay
attention to some things, such as making sure you always maintain a
known working boot configuration and kernel.
enjoy
A
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