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Re: LTS versions - confusion

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On 2021-09-15 at 06:45, Brian wrote:

> On Tue 14 Sep 2021 at 22:42:12 -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> On 2021-09-14 at 16:33, Tanstaafl wrote:

>>> Hmmm... ok, so, I could run sid 'forever', as long as I keep it 
>>> updated regularly?
>> 
>> In theory you could, but in practice it would break well before
>> that.

>> The guiding principle of running a system that tracks sid is "if
>> it breaks, you get to keep all the pieces".
>> 
>> It is NEVER advisable to track sid on a computer you're not willing
>> to blow away and reinstall on demand if necessary. (As distinct
>> from installing specific selected packages from sid on a
>> case-by-case basis - but be careful even about that, as the
>> dependencies of those packages might pull in enough other things to
>> lead to a hybrid Debian system and potentially break things.)
>> 
>> I would advise against tracking sid on any computer other than one 
>> you're running specifically to contribute to the process of testing
>> the contents of sid before they migrate into testing.
>> 
>>> Anyone do this for important (maybe not 'mission critical')
>>> servers?
>> 
>> I certainly hope not. (And am mildly horrified that someone who
>> posts as much good advice here as I believe I've seen from Brian
>> has said that he does.)
> 
> I am in agreement with what you say as regards stable vs unstable.
> For the avoidance of doubt, I would always advise stable for a user.
> It has been thoroughly tested, gets timely security upgrades and is
> supported by the images team with point releases. What is there to
> dislike about it?

There are a few possible reasons; the primary one is that new packages,
and new package versions with new features, don't appear for a long
(potentially *very* long) time.

For myself, I recommend stable for anything you aren't willing to do
active maintenance on (the way Tomas referenced doing with an unstable
machine), and testing - with, optionally, fallback to stable - for
anything else that's even vaguely a production machine. My daily driver
is the latter configuration; a server-ish machine I run at work is the
former.

> My response was simply to indicate that some users do run unstable, 
> hopefully knowing what they are doing. I see it as a way of
> contributing to a future stable and would not use it on an important
> machine. Someone has to watch out for Debian and upstream bugs in
> packages of interest to the user.

Agreed, and appropriate.

I sometimes regret that I'm not in a position to be able to afford the
workflow that would make "eh, just reinstall" a viable model for any of
my computers, because that would make tracking sid and helping test it
viable. (Helping test sid was, IIRC, the primary reason why I decided to
track it at one point in the past.)

> I was also rather hoping Tanstaafl would contribute a few words on
> how the unstable model contrasts with Gentoo's rolling release
> model.

That could be interesting, too.

My understanding is that the closest Debian equivalent to rolling
release is the sometimes-discussed but never-really-implemented possible
goal of "continuously usable testing", i.e. a model in which there's
never a release freeze of testing (and releases are done through some
other avenue) and - I think - library transitions etc. are handled in a
sufficiently atomic fashion that you don't wind up with some packages
temporarily unable to satisfy their listed dependencies.

I think there's still an interest in principle in achieving that goal,
but if there's any movement towards getting closer to a point where it
actually happens I'm not aware of that.

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

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LTS versions - confusion Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> - 2021-09-13 16:50 +0200
  Re: LTS versions - confusion Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2021-09-13 17:00 +0200
    Re: LTS versions - confusion Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2021-09-14 08:40 +0200
  Re: LTS versions - confusion IL Ka <kazakevichilya@gmail.com> - 2021-09-13 17:00 +0200
  Re: LTS versions - confusion Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2021-09-13 17:10 +0200
    Re: LTS versions - confusion Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> - 2021-09-14 22:40 +0200
      Re: LTS versions - confusion Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2021-09-14 22:50 +0200
        Re: LTS versions - confusion deloptes <emanoil.kotsev@deloptes.org> - 2021-09-14 23:10 +0200
      Re: LTS versions - confusion Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2021-09-15 00:20 +0200
        Re: LTS versions - confusion Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-09-15 09:00 +0200
        Re: LTS versions - confusion Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2021-09-15 15:20 +0200
      Re: LTS versions - confusion The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2021-09-15 04:50 +0200
        Re: LTS versions - confusion Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2021-09-15 12:50 +0200
          Re: LTS versions - confusion The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2021-09-15 13:10 +0200
          Re: LTS versions - confusion Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> - 2021-09-15 17:00 +0200
        Re: LTS versions - confusion John Hasler <john@sugarbit.com> - 2021-09-15 17:00 +0200
          Re: LTS versions - confusion Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-09-16 06:00 +0200
      Re: LTS versions - confusion <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-09-15 08:10 +0200
      Re: LTS versions - confusion Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-09-15 09:10 +0200
        Re: LTS versions - confusion "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2021-09-15 10:40 +0200
  Re: LTS versions - confusion Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-09-14 08:50 +0200
    Re: LTS versions - confusion "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2021-09-14 16:40 +0200
      Re: LTS versions - confusion l0f4r0@tuta.io - 2021-09-14 19:00 +0200

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