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Re: Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable

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On Lu, 13 apr 20, 09:29:50, rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
> Aside: for my own self respect, I want to make some sort of disclaimer here 
> (with maybe several points):  I'm sure that sometimes I post things that do 
> any of (1) make other people cringe (for one reason or another), (2) make me 
> look uninformed (or worse), and (3) other causes for embarrassment (to myself 
> of others).
> 
> I finally realized that the "normal" progression / hierarchy of the Debian 
> releases is from Unstable to Testing to Stable.

Correct. If you were to examine the archive with an ftp client you could 
notice that oldstable is actually a symlink to stretch, stable is a 
symlink to buster and testing is a symlink to bullseye (the codename for 
the next release).

Unstable always points to sid.

> I never looked it up -- I assume that, like most people, we don't look up 
> everything but make assumptions based on past experience.  I expected that the 
> normal progression for Debian releases would be from Testing (trying 
> all / any kind of new, possibly weird things),

That would be experimental (also known as rc-buggy).

> to Unstable (concentrating on things that survived some initial 
> testing and now maybe being released to a select group for some real 
> pounding en route to Stable.

Trivia: Long ago Debian only had stable and unstable, testing was 
introduced later.

Basically packages that are meant for the next stable release are 
uploaded to unstable. If they satisfy certain criteria established by 
the Release Team (no new RC bugs, tests and/or age in unstable, etc.) 
they migrate to testing automatically.

In order to prepare for release, testing is "frozen", i.e. the automatic 
migration is disabled and only targeted fixes for RC bugs are manually 
approved by the Release Team[1].

When the Release Team considers everything is "ready"[2] the release 
happens.

The next release starts as copy of stable and automatic migration from 
unstable is enabled again.

[1] This is a simplification, in practice the freeze has different 
stages with different rules.
[2] RC bug count is low enough, the distribution overall is consistent, 
etc.

Hope this explains,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable rhkramer@gmail.com - 2020-04-13 15:40 +0200
  Re: Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-04-13 17:00 +0200
  Re: Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable steef <debian.linux@home.nl> - 2020-04-13 17:20 +0200
  Re: Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable Kushal Kumaran <kushal@locationd.net> - 2020-04-13 17:20 +0200
    Re: Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable Sven Hartge <sven@svenhartge.de> - 2020-04-13 17:30 +0200
      Re: Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-04-13 18:50 +0200
        Re: Unstable ==> Testing ==> Stable Sven Hartge <sven@svenhartge.de> - 2020-04-13 19:10 +0200

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