What would I miss out on if I go on debian testing directly?

[chris.sound]

Hi there.

Can anybody tell me what advantage/disadvantae LMDE holds over the normal Debian Testing?

[cwsnyder]

That Minty goodness!

Seriously, LMDE is more stable than Debian Testing, as the packages are held back slightly to allow for more testing by the Mint team to keep updates from breaking the Mint add-ons, such as the Mint Update manager, Cinnamon, or MATE.

Of course, if you want the very latest packages with no holding back on updates (breakages or patches), you could go with Debian Sid or Arch.

If you just want to get on with your life and have a useful Linux desktop, LMDE or the main Linux Mint based on Ubuntu is less likely to turn your hair grey(er).

[killer de bug]

If you're pointing to Testing, you will have update more often. That could mean some rough edges more often but if you know what you're doing that would be fine... It can be possible for example that you loose compatibility with cinnamon for some time for example.

A thread is available on the forum to follow testing with advices.

[rop75]

i have been pointing to LMDE latest repos for 6 months and I changed to testing repos in July. The main difference is that LMDE latest repos make your system more stable, but testing repos make your system more updated and more secure. LMDE is more stable because the updates you receive have been previously tested by LMDE people (so updating your system won't break your system), but Testing is more updated and secure becuase it gets updates and fix security bugs more often that LMDE (LMDE latest repos only get updates when the Update packages are released -every 3 or 4 months-, and Testing users get updates several times a week).

As long as Testing is frozen I think that pointing to testing repos is a good option (as it is almost as stable as LMDE), but when testing starts to roll (it will start roling by the time Debian 7 is released... by February) it might be a bit tricky / hard for newbies.

[widget]

If you decide to go with the Debian testing repos make sure that the very first thing you do is run;

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update


and then;

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sudo apt-get install apt-listbugs


then you can run your package upgrade.

apt-listbugs will tell you of any KNOWN bugs out against any package you are upgrading or installing. As someone that runs Debian testing or Sid as my production OS I can tell you that this will save you a lot of problems. You can still get lucky and discover a NEW bug though.

Testing is pretty good at this point. Could change tomorrow. Personally I think Sid is running a bit better than testing right now as it is a bit ahead of testing on getting the packages. Seeing how, right now, Sid is where the bug fixes are tested before migrating the packages to testing It seems a bit more stable.

I usually use testing as my production OS but I am on Sid right now.

Do not try going from LMDE to Sid directly if that tempts you. Go to testing and make sure you are fully upgraded before even thinking about Sid. There will be enough change just going to testing.