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Re: Should I enable "testing"

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J.Arun Mani <J.ArunMani@protonmail.com> wrote:

> The question is, shall I revert back to "stable"?

At this point, the only sure way to downgrade to stable is via a
reinstall, because downgrading a package is not supported (in general).

Why is this?

While many programs don't store anything on disk that is version
dependent, this does not hold true for every one.

Image a tool "foobar-1.1.0", which stores some data in a file. Now a new
version is installed, "foobar-2.0.4" and during upgrade or the first
time it is run, it converts the data in the file into a new format that
the old version 1.1.0 cannot understand.

If you now dowgrade the package, you will get errors or worse, lose or
corrupt your data.

Similarly with some packages moving directories and files around during
the upgrade process. Downgrading them will not revert that move and the
older package will either operate as if no data exists or throw errors.

And even *if* after the downgrade of the installed packages the system
seems to work normally, you never know if there wasn't some subtle error
introduced which will catch up to you later.

During my now over 20 years of using and administering Debian and
Debian-derived systems unclean downgrades sometime during the lifetime
of a system was among the most reasons for future failures during
operation or upgrades.

TL,DR: So my advise is: Keep it as it is, just change "testing" to "bullseye"
so you will stay on the new stable release once it is released.

Grüße,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

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Thread

Should I enable "testing" "J.Arun Mani" <J.ArunMani@protonmail.com> - 2020-05-09 10:10 +0200
  Re: Should I enable "testing" Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-05-09 10:40 +0200
  Re: Should I enable "testing" Jean-Philippe MENGUAL <jpmengual@debian.org> - 2020-05-09 12:20 +0200
    Re: Should I enable "testing" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2020-05-09 13:40 +0200
      Re: Should I enable "testing" Peter Ehlert <peter@sdi-baja.com> - 2020-05-09 18:50 +0200
  Re: Should I enable "testing" Sven Hartge <sven@svenhartge.de> - 2020-05-09 14:30 +0200

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