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Debian Etch to Sid? How Stable is Sid?

I am running Debian Etch and I am interested in upgrading to Sid. I searched google and found multiple places saying that Sid is too unstable, but those were all dated 2005 to mid 2006. How soon will Etch be released as stable and how soon will Sid be released as testing? It is now many months later than mid '06, so is it a good idea to upgrade to Sid? Or should I wait until Etch is officially Stable?

Alk3

Sid is always Debian unstable, it will never be the Testing release. The next Testing is going to be called Lenny.

I suggest a quick read of:

Debian sid FAQ
http://wooledge.org/~greg/sidfaq.html

Debian Releases
http://www.debian.org/releases/

the way my system is set up I use testing (etch for now)with sid in my repos list.I keep the sid sources unchecked and only use them for packages that either are unavailable or broken in the testing release. ( I check the sid for the upgrade for a particular package and then uncheck it my done).

Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks for clearing that up guys. So since Sid does not recieve official security updates, I will stick with Etch until Lenny is out.

BTW craigevil: nice links in your sig.

You could always look into "sidux". It's pure debian sid. Easy to install, and run.

If you follow their advice etc, it runs pretty flawlessly.

Cos if a nugget like me can manage it, then anyone can.

You can find it here

Quote:

...since Sid does not recieve official security updates, I will stick with Etch

Actually, Sid does receive the updates ... before any of the other releases. Since Sid gets everything first, security updates are part of that.

Nevertheless, I would recommend that you stay with Testing for a while. It sounds like you haven't quite figured out the Debian sytem, yet, and it's a good idea to stick with Testing until you're pretty confident you know what you're doing.

I know quite a bit about linux in general and I know more about debian than other distros. However, I am by no means a guru. I was hoping by upgrading to Sid would teach me more about how to resolve dependencies and other issues. I have been running debian for about 1.5 years, so I know how it all works. I fall somewhere between user and guru (for debian at least), but more on the user side. So thanks for clearing all that up about the different releases.

What I was really getting at though was how to get the newest version of packages and some others that are not available to Etch. I did see sidux when I was doing some searches on google, and it looks promissing. Thanks for the link.

Is Xfce4 available in Sidux? (of course after a HD install)

Quote:

Originally Posted by xxAlk3XKidXx

What I was really getting at though was how to get the newest version of packages and some others that are not available to Etch.

You need to put a line for the sid/unstable in your /etc/apt/sources.list then create/modify the /etc/apt/preferences and /etc/apt/apt.conf files with something like this in them.

Code:

>$ cat /etc/apt/preferences

Package: *

Pin: release testing

Pin-Priority: 900



Package: *

Pin: release unstable

Pin-Priority: 600

Code:

>$ cat /etc/apt/apt.conf

APT::Default-Release "testing";

APT::Get::Show-Versions "true";

APT::Cache-Limit 20000000;

APT::Get::Purge;

APT::Clean-Installed;

Then you apt-get update and to install a package from unstable apt-get -s -t unstable package removing the -s if everything looks good sometimes you need to add extra packages on the end if apt complains about a package needed not being installed or at the right version, you can use aptitude in place of apt-get if you use it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xxAlk3XKidXx

<snip>

Is Xfce4 available in Sidux? (of course after a HD install)

Yes, I've just had a quick look through synaptic and it gave me a massive list of (I believe) all the xfce stuff.

For info, my sources.list looks like this

Quote:

# Unstable
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
# deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free

# Testing
# deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
# deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

# Experimental
# deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian experimental main contrib non-free
# deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian experimental main contrib non-free

# sidux
deb http://sidux.com/debian/ sid main contrib non-free fix.main fix.contrib fix.non-free vdr
# sidux temporarily
deb http://sidux.com/repo/transitional/ sid main contrib non-free
deb http://sidux.com/repo/compat/ sid main contrib non-free

# debian multimedia
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org sid main

# Amorak
deb http://people.debian.org/~adeodato/packages amarok-latest/

As you can see, I don't bother with the experimental stuff (don't know enough about how to get out of trouble if things go wrong). Plus theres little point in having a live entry for the testing stuff if the SID/unstable stuff is more up to date.

It's very good, I'd recommend it to anyone. Particularly if you use some of the available scripts to do the updates etc (the "h2" script comes to mind immediately as it updates everything including kernels etc and then detects the graphics card and offers you a choice of proprietary drivers if needed).

If you did "go for it", I'd suggest that you have a look through the sidux forums, they answer almost as quickly as here at LQ - if you installed their IRC, you get answers/support even quicker (bearing in mind it can look a little strange as the IRC channel shows lots of posting in German, demonstrating the german roots of sidux - the dev's where kanotix dev's before kano decided to start changing repos etc. This isn't a problem though - I don't speak any German and they've all been vvv helpful).

regards

John

p.s. Oh and the "sidux temporarily" entries in my sources.list are because mine was originally kanotix - which I converted with h2's script

Actually right now while Etch is frozen would be the perfect time to dist-upgrade to Sid, since pretty much everything that is in Sid is in Etch.

Heck even experimental is pretty safe at the moment, since a lot of the packages there would normally have moved into Sid by now.

No need to mess with a Debian-based distro running Debian Sid is just fine, especially if you know how to install drivers and fix the occasional breakage.

If you want the newest version of XFCE you can do:
Debian Xfce Group

Quote:

Packages are available in sid/unstable, etch/testing and sarge/stable distributions. You can install xfce4 as follows:

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install xfce4 $ apt-get install xfce4-goodies

Recently released Xfce 4.4RC2 (4.3.99.2) should be available soon in Debian unstable but we may release more cutting-edge bits to Corsac's repository as below. Source and binary packages for i386, powerpc and sparc are available at:

deb http://debian.corsac.net unstable/
deb-src http://debian.corsac.net unstable/

The key used to sign this repository is available here (key id E7710DEC).

Thanks guys. I was under the impression that Sid did not recieve security updates. That was my main concern, but I think when I get more time (tomorrow probably, for presidents day) I will try out Sid. I just wanted to find out if it was a smart idea to upgrade.

Quote:

Originally Posted by craigevil

In fact that is where the lastest KDE and Xfce is

Quote:

In fact that is where the lastest KDE and Xfce is

...and Gnome (for AMD64)

successful base install

I did a base install on a spare machine with the Etch net-install cd. I upgraded to a Sid base-install, and it works like a charm. My Wireless card works (madwifi) and overall Sid runs like a charm. Maybe after I have used Sid for a while, I will upgrade my laptop as well. Time to get a gui!

Thanks for all the help! Any other suggestions?

Just be a little careful doing dist-upgrades in Sid right after Etch goes Stable. There will be a flood of new stuff coming into Sid like a broken dam, and some of it will almost certainly be broken.