hotplainrice,

Even though CrashedAgain explained, pretty well, I might add, the thoughts behind "unstable", and the whole Debian "Sid" Knoppix, I can think of one more thing to add...

Even if you changed your sources.list file to pick up only installs that are of testing and stable, and then wait a year, or even more, you may still have "parts" that are still in the "unstable" classification... Some packages may never get past unstable, for who-knows what reason, and even though you dont "compound" the issue with new unstable packages, some of them wont go on to the testing or stable... Unstable, stable, and testing are just words, more likely to designate the "processing" of a package through Debian. Each year "woody", or the stable version, gets newer components added to it, from the testing side. Each year "sarge", or the testing version, gets the same thing, but from the unstable side. What is "commonly" known as the "Bleeding-Edge" of the Debian World, is the "sid" version, or the unstable, which is what Knoppix is closely based against, and this distribution is "constantly" being added to...

What gets Knoppix into trouble is the whole "blanket" upgrade, or dist-upgrade. When you get a lot of packages that are packed into the system, that have mixtures of stable, testing, and unstable, and then tell apt-get to upgrade whatever it thinks needs to be upgraded, it can only lead to trouble, ( speaking from experiance here ).

The best way to keep your Knoppix, or "unstable", system, stable, is to upgrade ONLY what you want to upgrade... If a new game comes out, and you already have the previous version, just re-install that ONE package, either through a apt-get install, or through a apt-get --re-install install -=- of that one package, not the whole enchilada, so to speak... its safer, easier, and will prove to keep your system up and running, no matter if it is labeled unstable, or not...

If you want a more "closely" related "Sid" based Debian system, go with Kanotix - it has been stated that it is more "Sid" only than Knoppix - or, if you want the testing version of Debian, go with the "Sarge" install from Debian, if you want the "stable" Debian release, get the "Woody" install from Debian... Lots of choices, and all are just a download away