How stable is Debian Unstable?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 11:37:16PM -0400, Daniel Wayne Armstrong wrote:
> Building a bit on the thread about Red Hat -> Ubuntu -> Fedora ... I
> would be interested in any feedback from long-term Debian unstable/sid
> users.
> 
> I have played with the various Debian branches (stable, testing,
> unstable) over the years. Stable for server setups + a few desktop
> installs with simple needs and usually testing for myself. I am
> currently running Debian unstable with no problems ... so far. A
> couple things I do that (might) make a difference to make the Debian
> unstable branch more stable:
> 
> * installed apt-listbugs
> * use apt-get from the console (logged out of X) vs aptitude or synaptic
> * frequent upgrades (1-3 times a week)
> * use a simple window manager (Fluxbox) ... maybe a more complex
> desktop environment might cause problems???
> 
> So - out of curiosity - does anyone here use Debian Unstable as their
> daily desktop environment?

I use unstable on my work desktop, my home desktop and laptop and my
mythtv box.

I upgrade haphazardly (sometimes multiple times in a day, sometimes 2
or 3 weeks apart).

The only times I ever had trouble is if I try to upgrade in the middle of
a major transition (perl 5.12 to 5.14 for example) when not everything
needed is in the archive yet.  In those cases, I see the long list of
tings to be removed and think "That looks wrong" and don't upgrade and
wait a day or two and try again.

I always use apt-get dist-upgrade.  I know aptitude is supposed to be
better, but its conflict resolution tends to drive me bonkers with its
long questions.  I consider synaptic useless.

I use xfce these days as both gnome and kde are memory hogs (and gnome
3 seems plain useless on top of that).

-- 
Len Sorensen
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