Unstable/testing/stable/expeimental classes of Debian?

**Ish Rattan** · 03-15-2007, 02:46 AM

Is there an explaination of the attributes of debian packages/repos?
Idea is to determine which is the proper one for use.

-ishwar

**onemyndseye** · 03-15-2007, 06:16 AM

Well... you pretty much said it

They are rather self explanitory names for the different levels of development at Debian...

Stable - Final Stage with all bugs worked out
Testing - (This is where knoppix is) More stable than unstable but not yet tested enough to be called stable
Unstable - Unstable or buggy software that is still in heavy development... Bleeding edge.
Experimental - This is the first rung of the ladder of development... for very new and buggy software.

youll notice the very newest stuff is always in Unstable/Experimental.... and Stable is usually WELL behind the rest. Debian tests its software thorghly before calling it stable...

Personally I like "Testing" or Etch ... best of both worlds. Pretty new software that is probably almost ready to go in Stable

Take Care,
-Justin
One Mynds Eye

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-15-2007, 06:48 AM

Originally Posted by onemyndseye

Stable - Final Stage with all bugs worked out
Testing - (This is where knoppix is) More stable than unstable but not yet tested enough to be called stable
Unstable - Unstable or buggy software that is still in heavy development... Bleeding edge.
Experimental - This is the first rung of the ladder of development... for very new and buggy software.

Just to add my 2 cents worth here, there are those of us who believe that no software the scale of a Linux distribution can ever be said to have all the bugs worked out, even if someone has labeled it "stable". On the other hand, Debian "testing" is much more rock solid that any Microsoft OS I've seen since DOS 3.2, and the same might even be said for unstable. The real problem is that Debian is extremely slow to update stuff, and by the time a version of Debian makes it to "Stable" it is very out of date. My general advice is people might want to use Stable if they are running a mission critical server and if they don't need any newer hardware support than Stable provides or any compatability with newer software. Most users, even very conservative ones, will be very happy with "testing" (currently etch), and are not likely to see serious problems if they choose to use unstable. For business use, unstable is probablly too new unless you need something it offers that testing does not, and in that case it might no be a bad choice to try it. For home use unstable is a good choice if you want to help in the software testing and could stand a rare crash, testing is a very safe choice, and stable is just too old for most users.