On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 05:05:56PM +0100, hdv@gmail wrote: > On 2022-01-28 16:53, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > > > Wherever possible, it's easier if you are using Debian stable: more people > > will hae experience / be running that at any one time. > > > > All the very best, as ever, > > > > Andy Cater > > I know. But testing is more convenient for me. I need to test current > software for the courseware I write. Stable is perfectly fine, but not if > you want to trail the leading edge a bit more closely. Sid is to close to > the edge for me though. > > I've been running testing for close to 25 years now. In the early days > breakage was a recurring thing, but nowadays that is quite rare. Up to now > I've always been able to solve any trouble. My time as a sysadmin still > proves to be useful when I need to do that. ;-) > > Grx HdV >
There's definitely something to be said, if you can, for running a "testing/ sid" distribution in a VM - the hardware requirements are usually constrained / understood" and, if the worst comes to the worst, you can supply a VM image to somebody saying "there's the entire thing you need against which I wrote my courseware" This is very general advice, of course, and everyone's situation varies. The formal security support for testing is not necessarily there and you can find times when there are informal freezes, long lasting package transitions rendering packages uninstallable, or, of course, the longer freeze before stable release. A VM also has the ability to constrain the software used and costs little to rebuild. For myself, I'd always build a full VM rather than a container - again, people's needs vary and everyone's situation is different. All the very best, as ever, Andy Cater
