LMDE and apt sources

[feffer]

Having messed up an upgrade, I realize I do not understand all the LMDE upgrade paths. When I installed LMDE about 2 years ago, I believe it upgraded from the Testing repo. At least that's what I think the sources.list said. At some point I became annoyed with the large number of apps upgrading brought in every week or so. Probably w/o fully understanding, I read that changing the repos to "incoming" would result in fewer apps upgraded. This seemed to work fine. But as I said, my UP5 upgraded failed. So I don't really understand the difference between Testing and Incoming.

Does Incoming mean fewer apps updated most of the time, and then some huge Update Pack happening from time to time? Isn't the basic LMDE iso install based on Testing. Is there an iso based on Incoming. Can I easily change from Testing to Incoming just by changing my apt sources? I like LMDE, but I'm confused about this.

[rop75]

All your questions have been answered in this post (reading this post should be mandatory before using Linux Mint Debian Edition): viewtopic.php?f=197&t=91405

To sum up: Testing or incoming are different things: Debian Testing is a release of Debian to test the packages that are going to be used in the next stable version. This version is -most of the time- a rolling version and has updates almost every day (and as it is a testing -a "beta"- version might have bugs, and so,might cause problems to its users). To avoid this problems the LMDE folks created the incoming and latest repos, these repos are based on Debian Testing, but work differently, they offer update packages every 3-4 months (these UP are a bunch of updated and (tested by the LMDE guysversions of the programs that Debian Testing offers to its users), this UPs make your system more stable and reduce the risk of suffering bugs or breakages in your system

Does Incoming mean fewer apps updated most of the time, and then some huge Update Pack happening from time to time?: YES

Isn't the basic LMDE iso install based on Testing. Is there an iso based on Incoming?: THE BASIC LMDE ISO IS BASED ON LATEST (LATEST AND INCOMING ARE BASICALLY THE SAME, AND MOST OF THE TIME THEY BOTH OFFER EXACTLY THE SAME PACKAGES)

Can I easily change from Testing to Incoming just by changing my apt sources? IN THEORY IS EASIER TO CHANGE FROM INCOMING TO TESTING THAN THE OTHER WAY AROUND. IF YOU CHANGE FROM TESTING TO INCOMING, YOU MIGHT HAVE SOME PROBLEMS WITH THE DEPENDENCIES BUT AS DEBIAN TESTING IS FROZEN AT THE MOMENT YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE MANY OF PROBLEMS IF YOU CHANGE YOUR REPOS BEFORE TESTING UNFREEZES (BEFORE THE NEXT VERSION OF DEBIAN STABLE IS RELEASED: MORE OR LESS FEBRUARY 2013)