Hi:

I'm on this page wondering which .iso to download.
There are 3 DVD .iso's for Debian Testing on this page.
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/we...amd64/iso-dvd/

Which one do I need to do a fresh installation?

Will I need to edit the sources.list to ensure that the repo's say testing or will that already be the default after a fresh installation?

Are upgrades achieved during an update or do I need to run the upgrade cmd everyday/once a week?

Have you ever had Debian Testing break and not be able to fix what was broken and had to perform a fresh install?

DVD-1. The others are for offline installations of more than the base system.

You will need to edit it, as by default those installs are for stable, aka jessie

apt update only updates the repositories, it doesn't actually install anything. When using testing, it's suggested you do a dist-upgrade, not an upgrade. This is due to the often changing nature of the testing repository. Also, make sure you're familiar with reading the latest notifications, as there are often broken packagges that could break the entire system.

No, but I've had it break X or some other system leaving it mostly unusable for a week or 2 until it was sorted out or I found the fix.

Thanks for the quick reply.

So replacing 'jessie' with 'testing' will solve that?

Like this?
deb http://security.debian.org testing/updates main contrib non-free

Either/or. 'stretch' would allow you to automatically transition to the stable environment when stretch was released, while 'testing' would make it into a semi-rolling release that would continue to track testing after stretch's release.

Using stretch is probably safer, as testing becomes extremely unstable a few months after a new release.

You only need the first disc. If you don't have any other discs, then any packages from the other discs will instead be downloaded from the repositories over the internet.

The install will have /etc/apt/sources.list point to the current testing branch (by default, it is by name - "stretch" rather than "testing", so when stretch gets officially released as "stable", your system will naturally transition to "stable").

By default, updates are initiated manually. You can do them as often or as infrequently as you like.

I used Debian Testing for a while because I wanted to use aufs and aufs was not in Stable at the time. I wasn't so happy with the experience, but this was more to do with the fact that I was using aufs in a way that wasn't really intended than problems with Debian Testing itself.

But generally, I think most people use either Debian Stable or Debian Unstable. Debian Stable is the one which will give you the least trouble, and Debian Unstable will at least have bugs sorted out quickly. Debian Testing is more of a proving ground for staging official releases. So, you have to be more patient to get the latest updates, as well as more patient to get fixes when something is broken (i.e. a package in a state where it won't install).

Basically, if down time is a real concern for you, just go with Debian Stable. If you're willing to sacrifice the risk of downtime for the latest versions of software, go with Debian Unstable. If you want to help the Debian project work out kinks for official releases, go with Debian Testing.

S T A R



https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

Thanks for the details IsaacKuo.
I appreciate that.

I'm off to read the documentation on Testing and Sid.
After reading I may consider stable after all but I like fixing things that get broken:-

Are you running stable or unstable at this time?

If you like fixing things that are broken, then run sid and don't read the upgrade notifications before kicking off your upgrades. While it'll stay up and running for months at a time, it's guaranteed to break at least a few times a year.

1 members found this post helpful.

I currently use exclusively Debian 8 Stable (Jessie).

Got it:- Thanks-
I'll decide after reading all of the Debian documentation on Sid and Testing.

Have you ran Sid and were you successful with fixes?

I usually run testing, but I've ran sid also quite a bit. If you're good about proactively reading the notifications BEFORE kicking off upgrades, then you can run it for years without issues. My one machine has been runnig testing since jessie was released, and it's never broken because I actually read the upgrade warnings and hold off when there are major showstopper issues.

Sorry for the delay.
I was busy installing Linux Mint on a laptop/tweaking it; for a friend of mine's grandson. (teenager)

I read the Debian Testing documentation and I've decided to go with Debian Testing.

Thank you both for your help and information.