Debian Testing

[der.hans]

Am 25. Jul, 2002 schwätzte Jay so:

> So, my workstation has been running Debian for a while, and my
> sources.list has been pointed at the testing branch. With 3.0 becomming
> stable recently, the branch that was testing is now stable. However, I
> never changed my sources.list - I just figured I would leave it pointing
> to testing. This leaves me with a few questions for the Debian pros out
> there:
>
> * How stable is the new testing branch? I know that unstable is just that

As stable as it will be. No more. No less. :)

> - unstable. However, the testing branch has always been very stable (for
> as long as I've been using Debian anyway). Is that branch always very
> stable (relatively speaking), or has it just been that way for the last
> ~12 months because the official stable branch was so old?

The 'testing' branch has only existed for about 18 months. It was a new
phenomenon after potato was released. I would be cautious. With testing you
should always be cautious anyway.

> * When I ran apt-get dist-upgrade yesterday, there were no packages. The
> same thing today resulted in 400+ upgraded packages to install. Obviously
> the new "testing" branch has kicked in. Should I change my sources.list
> file to the stable branch, or is it safe/stable to leave it pointing at
> the testing branch?

I've changed my preferences to lock in stable for now. I'll move to testing
again later when I have a reason to do so. That's what I recommend for
others as well.

testing should be fairly stable, though. I have some reservations for the
next couple of weeks as this is mostly the first rollover, but since it's
automated it should go quite smoothly.

ciao,

der.hans
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