Who tests Debian's software?

[Mr. Alex]

Do regular Debian users send bugreports to Debian developers when they find bugs? And if it's so, then I guess Debian developers have thousands & thousands of QA testers?

[exploder]

Canonical?

[Mr. Alex]

No; let's not talk about Canonical.

[mick55]

Do regular Debian users send bugreports to Debian developers when they find bugs? And if it's so, then I guess Debian developers have thousands & thousands of QA testers?

Debian has a "testing" version and when all the issues are ironed out
that becomes the new "stable" version of Debian.

But, perhaps the best place to find out the answer to your question is below.
http://forums.debian.net/

[Superewza]

Isn't that why they have a much longer release cycle than a lot of other distributions? They don't have any more testers than anyone else but they stick with it until they are certain that it's as stable as it's going to be, unlike say Ubuntu.

[mick55]

Isn't that why they have a much longer release cycle

Yes, and it delivers the stability and functionality I require for everyday use.

After all, it doesn't matter how fast or pretty it looks if you lose data.

[Superewza]

I know, and i agree. I just don't require the level of stability that Debian offers over any other distro at the moment. Hell, i don't have anything i don't mind loosing, i format the hard drive every few months.

But Debian is a great distro... if not pretty specialised. I think they should change the interface to reflect that, it's lightweight and solid as a rock. Using GNOME sort of acts against this wheras using something like XFCE perhaps with a customized theme would certainly help them play to their unique selling point, and so get more users.

[vrkalak]

I use Debian 'testing' with Xfce.

I have found Debian's "testing" branch to be considerably more stable than any of Ubuntu's supposed 'stable' releases ....

If you want stability then Debian stable is the way to go. Not released near as often as Ubuntu, but 'rock solid' stable ... always.
Debians 'testing' branch is just that 'for testing and development' ... Debian doesn't release Alpha or Beta versions.
Any Debian stable release can be made to point to testing, at any time.

The current 'testing' release of Debian testing is Squeeze. Squeeze will be released as the new 'stable' version of Debian, later this year.

Looking at the Debian 'testing' website, Debians Wiki pages and the Debian User Forum ... I would say there are literally thousands of people 'testing' the next version of Debian 6.0

[linuxviolin]

If you want use a "stable" Debian Testing you should/could try Parsix. OK, it's with Gnome but it's quite interesting... And it's Debian so if you want, you can still install another desktop, e.g. XFCE, after the install.

[nitehawk]

I agree about Parsix being a good Debian-testing based distro. I've used it before with the LXde desktop. At the present time,..I'm using stable ol' Debian Lenny with LXde.

[vrkalak]

There are several good distros based on Debians 'testing' branch.

Parsix (Xfce) > http://www.parsix.org/html/index.php
PureOS (Xfce) > http://pureos.org/index.php?lang=english
Crunchbang-10 (Openbox/Xfce) > http://crunchbanglinux.org/downloads/statler/alpha-01/

And, of course, Debian 5.0.3 (Xfce) as a LiveCD > http://live.debian.net/

I'm sure that there are other good Distros based on Debian 'testing', that I've missed. Don't be offended.
Google to find some, maybe. Or, you can do a search through sites like DistroWatch.com to find a few more.

[Mr. Alex]

As far as I know, next Ubuntu is based on "testing", not "unstable". Must be better...

[Robin]

As far as I know, next Ubuntu is based on "testing", not "unstable". Must be better...

Actually, Lucid will be the first time Ubuntu has been built on Debian Testing instead of Debian Unstable. Every prior release has been built on Debian Unstable. Perhaps they've decided that their LTS releases at least, need to be built on something less risky than Unstable. If they have (and I haven't read of any such thing), I think that's good.

Probably sticking with LTS Mint releases from now on,
Robin