Debian Updates

[lxskllr]

I'm currently tracking the testing repos, and as most of you know, they've been frozen for the Wheezy release. On another forum, it was suggested to drop back to stable until a few weeks after release to give bugs a chance to get worked out. Is there any validity to this approach? I've never done a Debian version change, and don't know what to expect. Is it common for things to seriously break when the update valve gets turned on?

 

[Crusty]

Why not just track 'wheezy' instead of 'testing'? AFAIK the transition from 'testing' -> 'stable' should be transparent for you. After some time you can go back to 'testing' if you want.

 

[lxskllr]

Why not just track 'wheezy' instead of 'testing'? AFAIK the transition from 'testing' -> 'stable' should be transparent for you. After some time you can go back to 'testing' if you want.

That's what I was asking. Is that prudent, or does it really matter that much? I don't mind the occasional problem, but I don't want my whole system to go to hell once the updates turn on. I guess I'm looking for experience from people who've run Debian awhile, and are familiar with the transitions.

 

[Nothinman]

I think you should be fine either way as long as you're using apt-listbugs and paying attention. I've been running sid forever so it's been awhile since I've paid attention to Debian release cycles. But moving to stable can be safer because you should be almost in sync with it now and once testing is unfrozen there could be odd breakage as new packages start moving from sid into testing.

I think this is why some people prefer using the release names instead of the logical ones. There's no accidental upgrades when the repo symlinks change after a release.

 

[lxskllr]

I think you should be fine either way as long as you're using apt-listbugs and paying attention. I've been running sid forever so it's been awhile since I've paid attention to Debian release cycles. But moving to stable can be safer because you should be almost in sync with it now and once testing is unfrozen there could be odd breakage as new packages start moving from sid into testing.

I think this is why some people prefer using the release names instead of the logical ones. There's no accidental upgrades when the repo symlinks change after a release.

Thanks. I think hold tight on testing, and see how it goes. If I really hose my system, I guess it isn't that big a deal. I wouldn't mind redoing my partitions. I left 10gb to root, and it's a little tight. 15gb-20gb would probably be better.