1.5.
Basics of the Debian distributions
Up one level
Debian maintains three different distributions simultaneously.
These are:
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stable — Most useful for a production server since it is only updated with security fixes. See The stable distribution, Section 2.1.3.
-
testing — The preferred distribution for a workstation since it contains recent releases of desktop software which have received a bit of testing. See The testing distribution, Section 2.1.4.
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unstable — Cutting edge. The choice of Debian developers. See The unstable distribution, Section 2.1.5.
When packages in unstable have no release-critical (RC) bugs filed against them after the first week or so, they are automatically promoted to testing.
Debian distributions also have code names as described in Debian distribution codenames, Section 2.1.7. Before Sarge was released in June 2005, the three distributions were Woody (stable), Sarge (testing), and Sid (unstable). After Sarge was released the three distributions were, respectively, Sarge, Etch, and Sid. When Etch is released, the stable and unstable distributions will be Etch and Sid; a new testing distribution will then be created (initially as a copy of stable) and given a new code name.
Subscribe to the low-volume mailing list debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org for important announcements about Debian. See The Debian archives, Section 2.1.
If you want to use versions of packages that are more current than the versions that were released with the distribution you are using, then you can either upgrade to a later distribution as described in Upgrading a distribution to stable, testing, or unstable, Chapter 5, or you can upgrade only selected packages. If the package can't be upgraded easily then you may want to backport it as described in Port a package to the stable system, Section 6.4.10.
Tracking the testing distribution can have the side effect of delaying the installation of packages containing security fixes. Such packages are uploaded to unstable and migrate to testing only after a delay.
If you mix distributions, e.g., testing with stable
or unstable with stable, you will eventually pull in
core packages such as libc6 from testing or
unstable and there is no guarantee that these will not contain
bugs. You have been warned.
Running the testing or unstable distribution
increases your risk of hitting serious bugs. This risk can be managed by
deploying a multibooting scheme with a more stable Debian distribution or by
deploying the nice trick of using chroot as described in chroot, Section 8.6.35. The
latter will enable running different Debian distributions simultaneously on
different consoles.
After an explanation of the fundamentals of the Debian distribution in Debian fundamentals, Chapter 2, you will be given some basic information to help you live happily with the latest software, taking advantage of the testing and unstable distributions of Debian. The impatient should proceed immediately to Debian survival commands, Section 6.3. Happy upgrading!
