Stable, testing or unstable?

Stable, testing or unstable?

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wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting
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I use Testing. Pretty up to date and still pretty stable unlike Unstable

i don't see any point in running debian if not for the lack of updates and the "stability" and ease of use that affords you.

Stable with apt pinning

Gentoo

>Stable
Only if you are using it in a corporate environment and it will be used internally/landlocked. Also only use if it will be providing basic shit on your network (samba share, internal webdocs, some other basic bitch shit). Granted, if this is what you want, why aren't you using CentOS?
>Testing
Basically above, but just slightly newer, desu. Avoid.
>Unstable
The only good default for a Debian box connected to the internet.

Why not Arch?

>server/serious production
stable
>anything else
sid
>willing to break shit
testing
>inb4 gLinux based on testing
yeah go on and remake the distro like they did and that would be better than stable and sid for every scenario.

I just want a functional OS. I Remember Debian stable had pretty outdated packages.

Never tried CentOS. Any good?

stable debian, stable life.

stable for servers
testing for desktops
there's no reason to use sid if you're not a Debian developer or severely autistic

Alpine

>using plebian

Testing is the worst of them.

The way Debian works, testing gets packages updated only after a 10 day waiting period from being on unstable (Sid). This is important because that means that if a bugged package makes it into testing, it could be months before that package gets to a point that it can go from unstable to testing.

It's a shame but a lot of users don't fully understand that Debian's 'stable' / 'unstable' does not refer to how crash/error prone the system is. It refers to how often the packages are updated. The packages very rarely update on Jessie, thus it being called stable. Sid has constantly changing packages, thus it being unstable.

Either use stable or unstable. Keep away from testing.

For reference:

wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting

>How Debian Testing Works

Packages from Debian Unstable enter the next-stable testing distribution automatically, when a list of requirements is fulfilled:

>The package has been in "unstable" at least for 2-10 days (depending on the urgency of the upload). The package has been built for all the architectures which the present version in testing was built for. Installing the package into testing will not make the distribution more uninstallable. The package does not introduce new release critical bugs.

debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-choosing.en.html (Section 3.1.5)

>Testing has more up-to-date software than Stable, and it breaks less often than Unstable. But when it breaks, it might take a long time for things to get rectified. Sometimes this could be days and it could be months at times. It also does not have permanent security support.

OP so dont listen to idiots like the newfag I quoted, if server/production stable anything else sid.

Server: stable
Work Desktop: stable + backports
Personal Desktop: unstable

>Testing has more up-to-date software than Stable, and it breaks less often than Unstable
That sounds like exactly what I want

>when it breaks, it might take a long time for things to get rectified
How often does this happen in practice?

because arch is literally sponsored by the nsa. enabling Simon Spock by default systemd networkmanager pulseaudio aur. more malicious intent is hardly possible in open source

if Debian stable is insufficiently bleeding-edge for you you'll like CentOS even less. Debian stretch is on kernel 4.9, CentOS 7 is still on 3.10.

I've actually always been okay with stable for a desktop though. the faster-updating packages in testing and sid are churn in exchange for new stuff that I won't notice. (I can't name anything between 4.9 and 4.19 that I'd be using if only I had a current kernel) I hear vidya gaymers need the bleeding-edge shit because so much with Linux gaming is still so buggy, especially with recent hardware. idk, glad I don't have to deal with it.

Maybe it changed recently, but testing was late to get security updates. Also sometimes bug fixes don't propagate from sid to testing fast enough, so you would be better off with unstable. Anecdotally, unstable has given me way less problems, and when I do get a problem, it's fixed within hours or days, rather than weeks to get a patched library pushed into testing.

Not as a desktop, neither are ideal. For a stable up-to-date desktop (IF you don't care about rolling release) then you should look at Ubuntu. If you are using Debian just use unstable.

Horrible desktop OS, don't listen to this memer.

This user Debians.

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Very little. My workstation at my job has been on the same testing install for like a year and a half. I dist-upgrade every morning and have never ended up with a broken system.

>Maybe it changed recently, but testing was late to get security updates.
It still gets them later than stable/unstable in most cases, but the delay is only 5 days for security patches now, and critical security issues are often pushed past that rule and end up in testing immediately.

> not using Fedora

>I dist-upgrade every morning
Even if it never breaks anything and you never have to go to any additional work because some package changed something or other... isn't that still annoying? I think rebooting once a month or so for a (stable) apt upgrade is hassle enough.

stable. always.

>isn't that still annoying?
He probably just has a cronjob do it

Switched from gentoo to Manjaro. Really great and fast/easy distro.

>Debian's 'stable' / 'unstable' does not refer to how crash/error prone the system is.

In a sense, it does, though.
- Stable means: the software had been in Testing for a long fucking time and no problems were found.
- Testing means: the software had been in SID for a few days and no obvious problems were found, but let's keep watching for any non-obvious ones and it might make it into Stable one day.
- SID/unstable means: let's see how badly this cutting edge software we got from upstream fucks things up. It's a _development_ branch which is _expected_ to be error prone and _expected_ to introduce bugs (which it does on a regular basis, often leaving half of the system fucked up for days).

Just because SID gets quicker fixes for the numerous serious bugs it introduces than Testing does for the few minor bugs that slip through to it, doesn't mean it's a good choice for a daily use OS.

>t. have been using Debian Testing as my only desktop OS for the past 5 years with zero problems
>t. used SID and a Testing/SID hybrid before that with a bunch of problems

Stable.
I just fucking want my shit to keep running the same as always, no surprises or faggy "new features" breaking shit.

Sid is fine with apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges. No wonder you got problems with a hybrid install because you shouldn't use a frankendebian.

>Sid is fine with apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges
It's only fine if tending full-time to your OS is what soothes your autism, in which case you should install gentoo anyway

You could always run stable then backport the few things you want to be more current (like your web browser).

I was using Unstable and everything was working great until I updated to GNOME 3.30. Weird issues everywhere. I tried switching to Budgie, but it couldn't even open the settings without crashing (probably because it opens GNOME settings and it was 3.30)

Eventually switched to KDE and it was fine, but probably because the release was a lot less fresh than GNOME 3.30.

Got tired of KDE and having to worry about things breaking so I installed Ubuntu MATE. Pretty happy with it.

everything besides these two answers are brainlet

Where you can get a real Firefox

ESR is better but read

nothing you said is evidence testing is bad to use

testing is fine, great in fact

Debian -> Stable
If you want newer packages use other distro.
Testing is a spaguetti mess, a lot of broken packages every now and then and they don't give a fuck about bug reports, they will even ignore bug reports on unstable and move the packages to testing.
I tried using testing but it was a mess, a lot of headaches, Arch works better.
For servers and such I use Debian stable.

testing

stable with i3 and polybar installed. Same exact ricing as my old Arch setup, same exact RAM usage, and none of the crashes due to "bleeding edge" packages.

All 3.
Stable pinned at 900, testing at 499 and unstable at 150.

I still use sources.list so just comment entries out as needed.

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I remember I had some troubles getting i3-gaps to function properly on Debian stable.

I use testing, specifically buster release so I can decide when to do major release update.

I run a gaming desktop and use a docker container to build mesa with LLVM 8.0, use that for games, works really well and keeps my OS clean and stable, while I can build the latest drivers for games.

I run home server / media server running kodi too, one of the AMD low power APUs from a while ago, runs 1080p great.

Neither. Install Arch

>For servers and such I use Debian stable.
Also this - anything production or redundancy based.

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Just use Ubuntu instead of being a time sink hipster.

I was on testing for a while because I wanted a sane "rolling" distro. It still didn't have the updated Firefox ESR at the time, I was manually installing and managing it.

Gave up and tried SUSE Tumbleweed. Works good, up-to-date packages. No problems, update every week.

If you are going to use unstable or testing, you might as well just to and use arch and get even more updated software.

If you need the "latest" you can just use snapcraft or flatpak.

>no equivalent of debconf
>no alternatives system
>no equivalent of APT pinning when mixing repositories
>no equivalent of apt-listbugs
arch is for kids with lots of time; where shit needs to get done you need a real gnu/linux distribution

What a beautiful wall.

Anyone here have problems with using suspend on XFCE? I'm not sure if it's a debian specific problem but everytime i suspend my system and try to wake it up it goes to a black screen and I have to go in tty and restart lightDM manually. I know for sure I didn't have this problem with Stable.

i'm finding it to be such crap i'm ready to just go baremetal or arduino IDE and become an anti operating system type

Devuan

What is the alternative for people that dont want to spend hours each day to figure out how to do simple shit?

Do you want 5 year old packages, 3 year old packages, or 1 year old packages?

I don't care as long as I can setup portage with it.

mac or windows

This.
Sadly a lot of people here have never really worked with Linux in a corporate environment

9

> debian
normie

arch or gentoo

rms is that you

>systemd
default in debian since jessie

> networkmanager
don't use it. not in base

> pulseaudio
don't use it. not in base

> aur
don't use it.

what is your point?

stable.
because that's good enough for me.

>arch linux
Arch has never been a minimalist distribution. Splitting packages is rare compared to other distributions, and dependencies aren't made optional whenever possible. Arch has never been minimalist... a Linux kernel with every module available and every feature enabled at least when there's no non-bloat related cost, feature-packed/complex GNU tools, nearly all optional features enabled across all the packages, etc. Additionally;
>pacman is fast but not safe, it tends to break shit and config protection is implemented in a terrible way
>there is no official process to verify that a package is stable within the distro, in other distros a lot of packages are in a testing repo despite that specific package's developer claiming it to be stable on its own, because it might not be stable within the environment of a specific distro
>(arch v gentoo related) arch users complain about 'muh compile time' when it comes to gentoo, while in fact they compile a lot of AUR packages themselves, namely the *- git packages that pull the source from a git repo
>but it gets even better: they only compile a handful of packages, and those not being libraries mostly, the self-compiled packages get linked against precompiled libraries from a different setup (e.g. different optimization levels), which can then cause even more instability because it's a clusterfuck of unequal shit
>arch uses (((systemd))) and switching to something else is hard
>the vim package on arch pulls in X, so if you want to have a fancy terminal text editor on a headless server, you need to install a shitton of GUI stuff which you'll never need nor use
>maintainer told the guy who complained to just symlink vi to vim (vi is inferior)

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>arch linux
>arch users pride themselves in installing arch and learning so much about how linux works under the hood, yet the install is literally copypasting a bunch of commands, usually without proper explanation
>e.g. to chroot into the new install, you use arch-chroot, which automatically bind-mounts procfs, devfs and sysfs, but nowhere on the guide does it say that that's a very important step, so should archfags ever need to fix their system via chrooting from a livecd that doesn't have arch-chroot, they'd be fucked
>the kernel is auto-configured in a just werks way (basically make allyesconfig), which is unnecessary bloat and for such a diy distro, configuring the kernel yourself should be the official way of doing it
>arch cannot boot without an initramfs per default
>pacstrap always installs the same shit, uclibc, dietlibc, musl, gnu-less toolchains etc are not an option from the get-go

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I used Arch for about 6 years and I've seen it through it's ups and down but I no longer use it for a few reasons.

First, let me dispel the myth that Arch Linux is only for advanced users who know exactly how linux works on a kernel level or the intricacies of the X server or whatever. It probably isn't a great distro for someone who has never used a command line before, but even then it is feasible for someone to copy in line by line the installation instructions from the wiki with no experience and end up with a fully functional system. This might not hold if you want to install some exotic minimal wm setup or set your system up for a very specific purpose, but these are of equal difficulty on any distro.

Arch Linux runs on the principle that all the software is always brand new all the time, and while this rolling release model may seem pretty cool, and is pretty feasible for a personal machine or certain type of person, in practice it can be a bit of a pain. Using it breeds in the user an unquenchable thirst for higher incremental version numbers in everything possible and you end up running pacman -Syu every time you get the chance. "It breaks all the time" isn't really true, but what is true is "if you don't update often, chances are things will stop working". If you don't update for about a month, especially if your thirst for higher version numbers has made you want to enable all the [*-testing] repos (it will), then chances are you're going to have to pull in about a gigabytes worth of updates that can't be expected to leave you with a nicely working system if you stop it half way through. "Partial updates are not supported" yell everyone everywhere, and this is fine if you can keep up with it, but you better not have a limited amount of data because you will be downloading a LOT of data just keeping your system up to date.

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Arch is so adamant about making sure every piece of software on the system is at the maximum version that older versions of packages are simply not available anywhere. This can be an issue if you need a specific version of something, whatever it may be, in your workflow. There are of course ways that you can do it, but arch seems to be engineered in such a way that this be as difficult as possible for you to do, and of course any mention of such activities will have you barred from any all all support (if you can call it support), but I'll get onto that in a bit.
As such, installing arch linux on a machine that you want to "do work" on a daunting prospect. Either you will realise right away that it it can't do what you want without extensive bodging, or you'll experience something close and realise how much effort it could be in the future. While arch breaking everything all of the time is certainly not true, it is true that you can never really trust the future to let you do what you want.
The AUR is touted as arch linux's biggest attraction; a vast, centralised, mostly unmoderated ocean of poorly written (on the whole) and seldom maintained build scripts for every piece of shitware you could possibly imagine. A reliable package on the AUR is the exception, not the rule. Absolutely anyone can upload absolutely anything up there, and unless your package becomes popular it will recieve no scrutiny whatsoever; this makes it not only inherently unreliable that anything there will work, it is also a huge security risk that most arch users, despite loudly and snidely telling everybody "if you dont read all the pkgbuilds then its your fault", don't read the pkgbuilds and leave themselves at risk.

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The main issue, however, is the culture of the users. The type of user that Arch linux attracts is a direct result of what it is. It is a basic and simple to use distro that looks like its complicated and difficult. It's got a reputation for being for "advanced users" when really advanced users would use a distro with proper support. It's a distro where you're encouraged to snidely tell anyone who wants help "ugh no spoonfeeding" yet with a wiki that literally spoonfeeds you every command you need to do things with no real explanation of what happens.
Therefore the average arch linux user is someone who wants to go around showing everyone how smart they are, but without actually having solved anything themself. They enjoy the idea of everyone thinking they're an advanced user and convincing themself that they are, and be hang around in support channels to be deliberately condescending to everyone else. Hang around in the SJW dominated #archlinux channel on freenode for a while or on the forums for endless examples. This makes the community around the distro particularly annoying and unhelpful.
For all these reasons I don't use arch any more, it simply isn't reliable enough to use for anything serious without a bunch of effort that wouldn't be necessary on another distro. Don't get sucked in and let yourself be enticed by the ability to say "btw i use archlinux", just use the best tool for the job you need to do, if that's arch linux for your purposes then fine. If you're just using linux for the sake of tinkering with it, then you'll get more satisfaction from gentoo. If you're going to use mostly gui applications and a big DE then just go with something like kubuntu or whatever, there isn't really any reason to believe that the sum of you + the personally shitty and opiniated people that put arch together can build a more stable and usable base than those who run debian or redhat or pretty much any other distro.

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To conclude, for pretty much any purpose you would want to use gahnoopluslinux, there will be a distro other than arch that will serve you better. If deep down the reason you want to use arch is mostly because of the self satisfaction and smugness you can feel, then you will be right at home in the arch community and I and everyone else urges you to stay there.
If you want a distro that you have to install manually on a command line or build up from a base system yourself, then just download a "netinstall" or "server" version of any of the big mainstream distributions. Installing it is exactly the same as installing arch linux, just substitute "pacman -S" for "apt install" or whatever the package manager is and follow the ironically spoonfeeding list of commands on the arch wiki.
What you will get, however, is much more flexibility in what you install, more carefully curated sets of packages, the ability to go to a rolling release if you want to, but don't have to, a much larger and more competent range of support, have a comfy time talking to other people who use your distro, be able to ask questions and get meaningful answers rather than just snide "check the wiki" or " have you even TRIED anything yet" or "fucking noob", the ability to run exactly the versions of the programs you want, and more importantly the reliability of distributions trusted by industry and enterprise users that you can trust for doing actual things on. You get a community that isn't just filled with self grandiosing neets and sjws (or at least less, gg linux), a package manager that actually has useful features and feels well put together, and a lot more free time that you otherwise would have had to spend chastising others for their choice of distro or saying "i use arch btw" in a fruitless bid to impress people or yourself.

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Wow

When I'm installing Debian I'm doing it's usually on a server or work rig, so stable.

stable for servers/mission critical
unstable for desktop
testing only if you want to test and report bugs actively.