I've been distro hopping a lot lately and while I want to use a low resource distro for my netbook none of them are really fully featured. Then I remembered my experiment with Debian worked out very well and it was much faster than using Ubuntu. The problem is I really don't want to be using such old software, and I know Wheezy is more bleeding-edge than Squeeze would be, and it is a much more fully featured environment than your average lightweight distro. Is it appropriate for every day use?

Try

http://solusos.com/

That looks excellent.

Wheezy is in its final testing "freeze" to become the next Debian Stable. I'd say it is "stable enough" for everyday use unless you are a bank, hospital, nuclear weapons facility, etc. As a side benefit, if you find a bug, then you can report it to Team Debian and help improve the final release. I personally am typing this from Wheezy.

I have a few Wheezy installs on my laptop and they are excellent. They are way more stable than a stable version of Ubuntu is. If it is just for your own personal PC and you are capable of dealing with "possible" hickups I'd say go for it. If you aren't capable then wait a little longer.

Doesn't answer the question, and Solus is only as suitable as Squeeze.

@OP
Have you considered backports?
http://backports-master.debian.org/

Backports get you selected updated software for Debian stable; (this is how solus gets up to date software).
Another option is Mepis. Mepis is based on Debian stable, with a great community, it gets more up to date software through the fantastic community repos.

I'm unaware how familiar you are with Debian couf, so just in case you're not very familiar, this is for your information.
Debian has three 'trees'; Stable, Testing, and Unstable.
Each one is given a release name. Stable is currently 'Squeeze', Testing is currently 'Wheezy', and Unstable is always 'Sid'.
The release name given to the testing branch will eventually become the new Stable release.
You have to track one of these three trees in Debian. You can choose to track them by there release name, eg 'Squeeze'; or by there tree name, eg 'Stable'. The difference is, if you track a release name, you will always stay with that release until you take action to upgrade. If you track a tree, you will automatically move to the latest release that falls under that tree. For example, if you were to track Wheezy, which is the current testing branch, you would eventually be running Debians latest stable, and if you continue to track it long enough, a new stable will be announced but you'll continue to track Wheezy. If you however track Testing which, as i said, is currently Wheezy, in development. Once Wheezy is released as the new stable, you will no longer be tracking Wheezy, but will get continuous new software and track testing while it becomes the new development tree for the next stable, and the cycle continues.
I hope that's clear.

If you want more up to date software, and backports can't provide it, then Debian testing would probably be a good choice. Debian testing is not stable like Debian stable though, and you may encounter some bugs. If you've been using Ubuntu and have been happy with it, i think it's safe to say you'll more than likely be happy with Testing too. Testings software generally isn't quite as bleeding edge as Ubuntus, but it's rolling, so as long as you do an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' often, you'll keep up to date. If you desire even more bleeding edge software, than maybe Unstable would be better suited. Unstable encounters more bugs than Testing. You should defiantly read change logs and keep informed by all means if you choose to run Unstable. You need to know how to fix things. Unstable is not recommended to be used on machines that NEED to work without issue. Ultimately Unstable is not as bad as that all sounds. Many people run it without problem on there desktop machines. I asked Debian users last year sometime if they consider Ubuntu or Unstable buggier and all said Ubuntu is worse.
I've never used Unstable, but i hope that has helped.

sid ftw!

stable is boring even with backports.

testing is buggy and atm is frozen.

sid rules. If you can handle Ubuntu you will love sid.

I was just making a suggestion, since he said that normal stable had old software and I heard good things about Solus.

I think Solus has a Wheezy version but it's Alpha.

http://solusos.com/blog/2012/06/solu...ha-3-released/

Another option is to try Linux Mint Debian Edition. LMDE is based on testing. They maintain their own repos of filtered testing packages to make sure they are stable. This seems to work very well. They have a nice forum.

I recommend LMDE for noobs.

I personally prefer Testing (currently Wheezy) for my production OS. I use Sid for backup.

I hate to admit it but right now I am using Sid much more than testing. Just running better right now.

The idea of bolstering craigevils arguements for Sid is a terrible one but none the less Sid really is nice.

If you decide to use Sid or Wheezy make sure you install the package "apt-listbugs" before doing anything else. This will tell you of any KNOWN bugs related to any package you are installing or upgrading. This will not help you if you are the lucky person to discover a new bug.

Frankly with the freeze at least partially on both Sid and testing are pretty stable.

1 members found this post helpful.

eight years of running sid and I still haven't had to reinstall.

Just pay attention to apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges and sid is golden.

Not entirely accurate. Solus has a bit of software that is current or close to current. Apart from Gnome 2.30 Solus looks like a nice OS and is pretty well thought out. I myself would use MATE 1.4 as opposed to Gnome 2.30, to get rid of some rather useless dependencies, but that's me. Some wouldn't use MATE simply because MATE hasn't got the developer backing (yet?) that Gnome 2.30 still has but MATE is making small but significant changes that make it a very nice DE.

I like Sid, I also like testing, and think a nicely setup Sid is probably one of the better systems you can use.

Then perhaps you can advise me.

I've used "testing" for the last year with no major problems. And most disasters have been averted by simulating the dist-upgrade first. But I don't dist-upgrade daily, more like fortnightly. And I can't depend on always having internet access. Such that sometimes, I download the deb packages off the internet in town, and then dist-upgrade later when offline. Which may present a problem...

If I dist-upgrade whilst offline, then apt-listbugs doesn't work. And hence, I cannot always get advance warning of bugs. Does that make switching to "sid" a no go?

It's good that it's worked for you for so long, but I think such statements can be misleading, especially to newer users, as it glosses over many of the details such as:

- apt-listbugs is a must, but it's not a firewall against bugs. If you upgrade daily then chances are buggy versions of packages will be on your system long before bug reports are filed... by then it's too late and as I recall apt-listbugs is not much use in telling you what buggy stuff is already installed...

- Some of the bugs/dependency problems in unstable can be "release critical" - i.e. worse case scenario - an unbootable system. I've read about these time and time again on the debian forums, like you I've been lucky enough not to be a victim of any of this myself. I still wouldn't recommend either testing or unstable to noobs however.

- It's called unstable for a reason (as is testing), there are problems, some of them are minor, others are annoying enough to be a deal breaker for some people. Over the years I've seen various irritating problems and regressions which can take months to get fixed, only to reappear again.

- There are thousands of packages in the Debian repos, and what you install differs to what someone else installs - thus what works for you, may not work for someone else. i.e. if you use gnome and someone else uses KDE, that's ~ 700MB of difference between your system and someone elses... if your volume manager is fine auto-mounting removable volumes - that's great for you - if their's is broken because there's a bug in the volume manager for their favourite desktop - that's not so great for them. If their hardware is newer and has an nvidia card, whereas yours is a bit older and better supported and has a radeon card he is effected by bugs in (only examples here) nouveau or the nvidia proprietary driver, whereas you're not...

- A testing or unstable system is in a state of continual flux. It requires daily upgrades and maintenance and a bit more thought than simply answering "y" during upgrades. It's a system for those who like to continually maintain their system, flying by the seat of their pants and practice their apt-foo - not for those who want to actually use it.

Based on this alone, you should probably not be considering running testing or unstable. stable with backports is a safer bet - less updates, thus less reliance on an internet connection. A dist-upgrade every fortnight is not anywhere near frequent enough for testing/unstable.

Happily running Wheezy on my Acer Aspire One netbook. Will upgrade to the next version of testing when Wheezy is released.