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How many of you use "testing" branches of debian?
duckeeyuck
Member
in General
Or something that isn't stable (w/e the equivalent is in your distro of choice).
I'm referring to your servers not your personal computers tbh.
say which because someone asked you on the internet
- which?!?!?!?!32 votes
- testing28.13%
- stable71.88%
Comments
Security updates for Debian Testing are slower than for Stable. Also running a server on Testing is going to be a lot more hands on, because as packages are upgraded to new versions stuff will break. There will also be times when the packages you want are simply uninstallable. Here is a list of currently uninstallable packages in testing/amd64 for example. That's more than 4% of all packages right now.
I definitely see the allure of Testing. Personally I am really looking forward to being able to use Apache 2.4 on Debian Stable without frankensteining my system. But in my opinion using Testing or Unstable on a server seriously undermines one of the primary reasons to use Debian in the first place: stability and predictability.
TBH the primary reason I use testing is for its rolling update system, which is hard to find elsewhere.
Debian stable + wheezy-backports with nginx from the nginx debian repository and mysql replaced by Percona 5.6.
I use Debian Stable on the servers with Dotdeb repo for Nginx and PHP. IMO Testing/Unstable should be on your personal boxes/desktops/etc.
stable+backports
There is no point in running into trouble due to the underlying OS, just use backports for something you need or compile it if you really-really have to.
I'm curious why anyone would want rolling upgrades (eg by using Debian Testing) on a server. Obviously it's nice to get access to newer features, but I also hate surprises. I've really learned to appreciate having a stable platform to build on for a couple of years at a time.
As for using third party repositories, I've been burned during dist-upgrade more than once. You can always recover the system, but not the time you put into dealing with it. Currently I don't use any third party repos, even on my desktop computers at home. I'm not saying don't do it. Just don't do it unless you're 100% certain a solution for your problem cannot be accomplished with what the distro provides.
Never underestimate the technical debt that straying from your distro can cause.
I think from a provider POV its irresponsible to use testing builds.