Is Mint Debian stable?

[Bali]

Hi everybody,

First many thanks to release this Mint Debian, it is a great idea.
I tried it as a live DVD, looks very nice.

But just a question...

If i understood correctly, Mint Debian is Based on Debian Testing. If i am not wrong the Packages of Debian Testing are not 100% stable, some are still buggy, rigth?

So it means that If i use Mint Debian, my computer will use an unstable distro?

Plus, let say that i use Firefox. Everytime that Mozilla find a bug or launch a new version, my Debian will download the update or will uninstall my Firefox and reinstall the new one?
If this is an update, i am worry of the stability of my system after (just an example) 45 updates in 2 years. Is it clean for the system? It will not corrupt it or slowing it down?

I ask you this because on my two workstation I use Debian Lenny, so I receive only security update, not software update (last version I mean). So my workstations looks very "clean"' and stable.

Last question: is there a way to select the stable repository instead of the testing? I didn't find the option in the live DVD.

Thank in adavnce for your answer.

Bali

[tdockery97]

Hi Bali. Yes, you can change the default update sources to Stable instead of Testing. It works just like the main Debian distro that it is based on.

[vincent]

You'll have to edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file to point to "squeeze" instead of "testing" after the installation. (Pointing to "lenny", or "stable" at this point of time will not work because APT was never meant to be used to downgrade packages...that's rather difficult.)

I've found Debian Testing to have a fair balance between cutting-edge-ness and stability. You see, most desktop users don't want to use archaic software, but introducing cutting-edge software may occasionally cause stability issues; there has to be certain trade-offs made, and I think Testing offers the best of both worlds (unless you find yourself growing impatient at waiting 10 days or so for packages to migrate from unstable to testing...in that case, use Unstable). And the way APT is designed, doing updates is perfectly "clean" as well.

[Bali]

Ok, thanks both of you for your Help.

Ok I changed it to Stable. But because the package comint with Mint Debian are the testing version, it means the update will uninstall all the package to replace all of them by the stable one? If yes, maybe not so "clean"no?

[vincent]

As I said, do not change it to "stable". If you must, change it to "squeeze" instead to freeze your LMDE once Debian 6.0 Squeeze is finally released later this year.

The reason is because APT cannot downgrade packages by itself...it is configured to update all your packages to the latest version(s) available through the listed repos in your sources.list. You cannot downgrade your packages without jumping through some very convoluted hoops, which is unsupported by Debian and would likely break your install. Just by changing your sources.list to "stable", nothing will happen; your already installed packages take precedence over the older packages in Debian Lenny's repository, so no updates will take place.

[craigevil]

Testing isn't that bad, heck unstable is way more 'stable' than most other distros; way more 'stable' than Ubuntu and friends.

Keep in mind that Debian supports a ton of architectures , a lot of bugs I see with apt-listbugs have nothing to do with i386/i686 or amd64.

In the six years I have ran Debian sid I have yet to have any major issues, still haven't had to reinstall. The biggest issue was going from XFree86
to Xorg back when Sarge was stable.

I upgrade daily doing:
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -yd ( cron-apt does that for me)
Then when I get up I do apt-get dist-upgrade

If xorg or the kernel updates I then run smxi/sgfxi so the Nvidia driver gets reinstalled.

The trick to keep things running smooth is to have apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges installed.

So yeah I would say LMDE is 'stable'. Like others have already stated you can change your Debian sources.list so it has squeeze then when it is released you will be running Stable.

[Bali]

Hi all,

Many thanks for all those informations, feedback, and advices.

So what I will wait the Release of Debian Squeeze and after few days download the last ISO of Mint Debian. Because if I understood everything, as soon as Debian Squeeze will be release, the Mint Debian will be updated that means that all the package inside will be in a stable version.

Cheers

Bali

[craigevil]

Hi all,

Many thanks for all those informations, feedback, and advices.

So what I will wait the Release of Debian Squeeze and after few days download the last ISO of Mint Debian. Because if I understood everything, as soon as Debian Squeeze will be release, the Mint Debian will be updated that means that all the package inside will be in a stable version.

Cheers

Bali

No need to install a newer LMDE version. That is the beauty of Debian you never have to reinstall , none of that install a new version every 6 months.

Debian is designed so you never have to reinstall. Make sure your sources.list has squeeze instead of testing, that way when Squeeze is released you can stick with it.

[Gramps50]

I have been running LMDE since it 1st came out. I'm using it on my Dell laptop and Gateway netbook and it has worked perferctly on both systems. In the past I have ran Lenny, Squeeze & Sid and to be honest any trouble I had was brought on by myself, by dorking around trying different things. Some was by doing a minimal install then doing my own configurations, interesting learn experience.

Would I worry about running LMDE on a production machine at this time, no. The only thing we don't know is what is going to happen when Squeeze goes stable a bunch of stuff that is in unstable now will go to testing (currently Squeeeze). Even so I am not that worried about it, I think we will be okay.

If you don't want to take that risk then change you app sources from testing to squeeze. Then you can watch and see how testing is going and if you are so declined change your sources back to testing about return to the current LMDE.

My best guess is that Clem and crew has all this under control and LMDE will only get better!!

[tdockery97]

The only thing we don't know is what is going to happen when Squeeze goes stable a bunch of stuff that is in unstable now will go to testing (currently Squeeeze). Even so I am not that worried about it, I think we will be okay.

Yes I've seen it. Since I had just done a Clonezilla backup, I decided to experiment and changed my repositories to Sid. It upgraded about 240+ items, so it was kinda like when we first installed LMDE. The thing I didn't do was carefully select what was being installed (dumb). It evidently changed the video driver because it screwed up my video (it worked, but not well). I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the driver but it didn't help, so I restored my Clonezilla backup and all is well. If I try that again I will use the Mint Updater so that I can uncheck anything that has to do with video and it will probably be fine. On the other hand, I may just stay with Testing. Whatever borked my video may be fixed by the time it moves into Testing. It was an interesting experiment though. My laptop didn't explode or anything.

[Bali]

Ok everybody, i will follow your advice, and install it in December (not time for that at this moment). It will be my Christmas present!

[guimaster]

As I said, do not change it to "stable". If you must, change it to "squeeze" instead to freeze your LMDE once Debian 6.0 Squeeze is finally released later this year.

The reason is because APT cannot downgrade packages by itself...it is configured to update all your packages to the latest version(s) available through the listed repos in your sources.list. You cannot downgrade your packages without jumping through some very convoluted hoops, which is unsupported by Debian and would likely break your install. Just by changing your sources.list to "stable", nothing will happen; your already installed packages take precedence over the older packages in Debian Lenny's repository, so no updates will take place.

I am confused by these comments here. If APT can't downgrade and APT also prefers the installed packages - which are more up to date - why would the install break? If people switch to Debian Stable, nothing should change on their system until Debian Stable is upgraded for the next release, right? So basically you wouldn't get any updates for a long time.

It makes a whole lot more sense in my mind for people to be on Debian Stable rather than Testing. But I don't know enough about it. LOL

I would also like to know what would happen to Ubuntu 10.04 on my laptop if I switched it's repositories over to Debian Stable. I want to try it - as I am going to reinstall anyway... But I don't know how to find the repository. Googling hasn't helped so far... I just want to be clear though. Is there actually a repository called "Debian Stable" that continues permanently? Or does the Stable repository change names everytime and then disappear?

[beli0135]

Yea, it is stable... Using it for 3 weeks now, only glitch I had was Skype sound, which was solved by removing PulseAudio garbage. Put KDE4, and that is it... just works.

[guimaster]

Hello everyone,

I switched my Linux Mint Debian Edition "Sources.list" file from "testing" to "stable" and not to "squeeze." I had 4 updates to download. Now I am up-to-date until the next time files are added to "stable," which may be a long time from now, but the day will come, and when it does I - hopefully - will safely upgrade to the next distro without problems. We shall see I guess.

If this works it will be a nice compromise between being up-to-date and stability.

[asymmetros]

by guimaster
I switched my Linux Mint Debian Edition "Sources.list" file from "testing" to "stable" and not to "squeeze." I had 4 updates to download. Now I am up-to-date until the next time files are added to "stable," which may be a long time from now, but the day will come, and when it does I - hopefully - will safely upgrade to the next distro without problems. We shall see I guess.

Probably in December, testing (squeeze) will become stable. My objection for your method is this: you change now from Testing (Squeeze) to Stable (Lenny) and in about a month, you ll end up with Squeeze again (Stable then). It will be more simple if you had stayed with Squeeze and didnt perform a single update till the Squeeze released as Stable.

[jeffreyC]

Since most updates are bug fixes and security patches I cannot understand why you want to avoid them.

[asymmetros]

by jeffreyC
Since most updates are bug fixes and security patches I cannot understand why you want to avoid them

I dont want to avoid them (and dont want to update without checking what is coming). But i was referring to guimaster's method.

His method: squeeze testing > lenny stable > squeeze stable. Significant updates only with the release of the new Stable.

Almost equivalent to this (but with no mess): squeeze testing > squeeze stable. Significant updates only with the release of the new Stable.

[gotjazz]

plus going from squeeze testing to lenny stable you don't get bugfixes for problems created by packages that are newe than what's in lenny.

[driverevil]

I want to know that too...I mean , installed since came out, some things are better, but there's a bunch of bugs and I'm thinking to drop it and get back mint..
Should I install mint 10 or wait something else to debian?

[Grundoko]

Debian Stable is used for critical servers in large corporations (In cases where Red Hat is not used).

Debian Stable is rock solid, unbreakable without a user tinkering.

Debian Testing is still more stable than most desktop Linux distros, and I'd trust Debian Unstable with my computer long before I'd trust Ubuntu.

Debian Stable is very rarely updated, the packages are very old, they take old stable versions instead of new versions of software with new features.

Testing is in between, the software isn't brand new, it's stuff that's being tested for the next stable version of Debian.

Unstable gives you all the latest Debian packages.

Overall, yes, Debian Testing is stable.