[TriLUG] Debian installation.

[Ed Warnicke]

In my experience with Debian unstable you can expect to have an
issue with it about twice a year that might actually be impacting
( ie something breaks in a serious enough way you must downgrade to
keep going, like when they broke libpam about 2 years ago ).
That being said there are quite some several improvements
that let you be more... selective about taking updates:

apt-listchanges will show you the changelogs for the packages you are
about to update and confirm you want to update them.

apt-listbugs will show you the outstanding bugs against the version
you are about to install, so you can get a feeling for those things
that have been reported broken and how severe those bugs are ( and
whether they've been resolved ).

As to using unstable in a production system, it depends on what you
mean.  I wouldn't suggest using anything you haven't tested thouroughly
in a production system.  This implies redoing your testing when you
are preparing to upgrade that production system.  I'd apply that rule
equally to any Linux distribution.  I suspect most of the time if you
were to take a snapshot of unstable and test your production system
on it you'd find it to be as stable or more stable than most other
distributions.  The difference with Debian is that most people don't
just install it and leave it alone. Most Debian users upgrade
their Debian systems daily.  I wouldn't recommend using any system
in production that you are updating daily unless you can test it
daily before rolling it out into production.

As to Debian support forums... I've never really had to use them.  Usually the
answers to my questions about it are either clearly documented in a bug
at bugs.debian.org, in the recent mailing lists at lists.debian.org,
dealt with in the man page or /usr/share/doc/<pgkname>/, or answerable
in less than 2 minutes of googling.  This is not to suggest that Debian
support forums shouldn't be helpful and friendly, but Debian is
such a heavily overdocumented system I've never had to use them.

Ed

On Thu, 22 May 2003, Ken Wahl wrote:

> On Thu, May 22, 2003 at 01:15:57PM -0400, Ben Pitzer wrote:
> > Ken,
> >
> > Debian unstable is NOT for production use.  Honestly, I'd go with Sarge
> > (testing) if I were you.  Folks who use unstable (Sid) are expected to do
> > bug reports regularly, and really participate in the development process in
> > that manner.  If you're willing to do that, and have your machine be
> > bleeding edge, but always have the potential to break, lockup, etc., go for
> > it.  But the community view is that there is a feedback and assistance
> > responsibility that is expected of Debian Unstable users.  That being said,
> > do what you like, but be warned that asking for help in any Debian forum
> > will probably get you shorter shrift than usual as an unstable user.
> >
>
> Yes, thanks for the headsup.  This may not float well with the Debian
> enthusiasts but it was my understanding that Debian support forums
> aren't very..um..well.(ahem)..supportive.  "What? You moron..You didn't
> see that in page 1256 paragraph 27 subsection B?  RTFM already!  Besides
> you could've written a simple 900 line shellscript to fix that.."
>
> [Reaches for fire extinguisher..]
>
> I jest but you get my point.  I would be wary of seeking support for
> debian regardless of version unless I had googled for weeks and read
> every man page, every info, and every readme I could find under the sun
> and even then only with some trepidation.
>
> The reason I was thinking of unstable was for for software availablity.
> It was my understanding that the reason Debian stable is both very
> stable and somewhat out of date was because it was so thoroughly
> debugged.  Sarge, as I understand it, is a middleground between stable
> and unstable.
>
> This wouldn't have been a production system, just something to play with
> to see if I like it.
>
> I've heard Debian users say/write that unstable is still pretty stable
> when compared to Redhat or Mandrake.  IOW it would be like running a
> redhat (now defunct) x.0 distribution or maybe a little bit better.
> --
> Ken Wahl  ken at kenwahl.org  http://www.kenwahl.org
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