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Re: Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a Debian newcomer)

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On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 06:48:21PM +0100, Sam wrote:
> Thanks for your points of view! I agree that Stable comes at a cost, and of 
> course if I ever were to set up a server Debian would probably be my choice.
> 
> Regarding derivatives, I know about Ubuntu, Mint, etc., but I don't exactly 
> like distributions tied to or ultimately dependant on commercial entities (I 
> want a change of air after going through Ubuntu, openSUSE...)
> 
> I have also seen independent Debian derivatives (MX Linux comes to mind), but 
> they either used backports or the Testing distribution.
> 
There are literally dozens (hundreds?) of Debian derivatives out there.
You might find that one or another suits your needs better than the
rest: https://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Census

> I would happily consider using Debian Testing for example, but wherever I see 
> someone asking about it I always find someone discouraging from using it due 
> to the possibility of having broken or unsecure packages for a long time due 
> to it being automated. Is it actually usable for a Workstation? The same would 
> apply to Sid, I can no longer allow myself to fix big breakages after broken 
> updates (I don't know if that really happens often in Sid)
> 
On strategy would be to run testing and not update too frequently.  The
important thing there would be to monitor the -user and -devel mailing
lists to ensure that when you do update it isn't in the middle of a
known "trouble spot".  The trade there is that you must invest the
effort in keeping up with what is going on at a fairly low level and you
won't be getting timely security support.

The approach that I take is to run stable on my workstations/laptops and
then use chroots, containers, and/or VMs for when I need a "newer"
environment.  For instance, I need to run the lintian utility on my
packages before I upload them to the Debian archive.  For this to be a
useful check it must be performed with the latest lintian from unstable.
I have an unstable chroot environment which has (among other things)
lintian installed in it at the latest available version so that I have
it always available when I need it.  If the environment breaks because
of a bad update or bug in a package or whatever, I have others that I
can use instead.  For containers and VMs, taking a snapshot before
upgrading to allow roll-back is trivially easy.

Something similar may work for you.

Regards,

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez

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Re: Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a Debian newcomer) Sam <debian@samueldgv.com> - 2020-02-25 19:10 +0100
  Re: Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user  (and a Debian newcomer) Roberto C. Sánchez <roberto@debian.org> - 2020-02-25 19:20 +0100
    Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a Debian newcomer) John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-02-25 20:30 +0100
  Re: Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user  (and a Debian newcomer) John Cunningham <djohngo@gmail.com> - 2020-02-25 19:20 +0100
  Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a Debian newcomer) Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2020-02-26 01:10 +0100
    Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a  Debian newcomer) Keith Bainbridge <keithrbau@gmail.com> - 2020-02-26 07:10 +0100
      Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and  a Debian newcomer) Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net> - 2020-02-26 14:40 +0100
      Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a  Debian newcomer) Keith Bainbridge <keithrbau@gmail.com> - 2020-02-26 14:40 +0100
        Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and  a Debian newcomer) Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-02-26 17:50 +0100
          Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a  Debian newcomer) Keith Bainbridge <keithrbau@gmail.com> - 2020-02-26 23:20 +0100
            Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a  Debian newcomer) Keith Bainbridge <keithrbau@gmail.com> - 2020-02-27 02:10 +0100
              Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and  a Debian newcomer) Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-02-27 15:10 +0100
                Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and a Debian newcomer) Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2020-02-27 15:40 +0100
                Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and  a Debian newcomer) Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2020-02-27 16:40 +0100
            Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and  a Debian newcomer) Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2020-02-27 16:30 +0100
  Re: Understanding the two-year release cycle as a desktop user (and  a Debian newcomer) Didar Hossain <didar@purlo.in> - 2020-02-29 12:10 +0100

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