Re: It is time for a feature freeze (it is NOW or never).

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 08:44:58AM +0900, Kenichi Handa wrote:
> > Do you have `testing' or `unstable' in your sources.list?
> 
> Ah! No.  But I'd like to avoid installing such versions by
> apt-get.  I always install testing version in
> /usr/local/... by getting source and compiling it.

I wouldn't worry too much about it -- "unstable" is actually quite reliable
generally (failures are almost always of the form "package won't upgrade",
which of course leaves you wait the old version still installed).

"testing" is even better: it's like unstable without the occasional problems
unstable has, albeit a tiny bit older.

My vague rules are:

  * For a personal machine with a fast net connection (so downloading fixes
    is fast), use "unstable" -- the frequent upgrades and quick bugfixes are
    more than worth the occasional (and usually minor) problem.

  * For a personal machine with a slow net connection, or where you don't
    want to do frequent updates, use "testing".  Weighing the (small)
    _potential_ for unstability in "testing" versus the rather old (and often
    buggy) software in "stable", testing almost always wins.

  * For a big department server, where changes can affect many people, maybe
    "stable" is justified -- but even here, you probably want to download
    both package lists, and install some packages from testing as well,
    where the stable version is simply too stupidly old.

-Miles
-- 
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