Shamooon!

I had linux running for nearly 2 months and everything was fine (3.0r0, 2.2.20);

The minute I've managed to hook it to my ADSL, I've tried to upgrade to testing flavour by changing all 'stable' to 'testing' in sources.list + dist-upgrade;

(Question #1: is there a better way to achieve such an upgrade?)

It didn't work. Apart from dozens of apt-get update in the middle, the end result was broken system with no KDE, no GNome and nothing I did helped.

I also made the mistake of updating to kernel 2.4.22-1-686

Then I tried downgrade back to stable (testing -> stable in sources.list), which lowered the curtain on my linux box. (dselect just couldn't handle it, it tried to remove the kernel and millions of other packages - but never did it manage. ).

I had to reinstall.

(End of past - start of future)

I've used net install to install Debian...

(Question #2: cat /etc/issue = Debian 3.0; I'm not sure whether it's r0 or r2, is there a way to tell?)

Now when I try to update to kernel 2.4.22-1-686 it wouldn't let me, the highest kernel it will enable me is 2.4.18-686.

(Question #3: I guess that 2.4.22 is not yet supported by stable, is that right?)

Anyway, now that I've got my system reinstalled, I can't help trying to upgrade to testing again - I've got nothing to lose (apart from few hours).

The current computer will use me mainly for development (C++), wouldn't it just be better to leave it on Stable? (This was question #4.) I'd rather have a machine that works rock-solid then one that needs constant maintenance and has a risk of a heart attack. On the other hand, being a microsoft user since the days of DOS, nothing can be worse...

Also, I'm soon to setup a web-server on a dedicated (flashy) box, I reckon this should be based on stable only. (Question #5)

Thank you all for reading this. If you can't be asked to discuss this already-been-discussed-millions-of-times topic, replies like:

Development - testing
Server - stable

will be highly appreciated.

Thanks again.

TheSwine
Develpment = Testing (if you dare, else stable)
Server = You gave no other chloice but to go with stable to get the security-updates
For exitement in life = Go for unstable Sometimes that wilk be all the exitement you need for a day.
(i love that)

Kernel? I wonder who you should believe then? Kernel 2.6.0 is already "stable". When it comes to the 2.4x series think that 2.4.25 is that latest stable version. (taking this from memory)
What you should do is go to www.kernel.rg and download thekernelversion you want to run, tthen compile it yourself and install it by hand (Don't use the "make install" command)

Since you to have used the net to install from, i don't think that the version number means that much. As long as you do regular upgrades you'll always have the latest version. *grins* Debian is Debian

1) Don't use testing. Use stable or unstable. Testing is often more broken than unstable these days.

2) Nope.

3) I think that 2.4.18 is in woody/stable but not sure if they've updated a 2.4 kernel past that.

4) Depends on your compiler needs I suppose.

5) Important server? Definitely stable. Toy server? Whatever you think is good.

From your first post you said you changed sources.list to testing, then ran apt-get dist-upgrade. You have to apt-get update BEFORE dist-upgrade. 2.4.18 is the most recent kernel-image from Debian. If you want a newer kernel, compile your own. I agree with Strike, use Stable or Unstable. Definitely Stable for the server.

My servers run Stable and I compiled 2.4.23 on them with no problem at all.

Good catch, llamakc. Yeah you have to update any time you make sources.list changes if you want any subsequent installs/upgrades/dist-upgrades to use those changes.