I love debian. It is my favorite linux ditro. But I cannot stand that the software in the Repositories are so outdates. I am thinking of switching distros because of it. Are there any alternatives besides installing sid? Could someone tell me of any good unofficial repos that have up to date software? Thanks.

Home/hobbyist systems belong on Testing (currently Lenny).

Does Lenny have the latest up-to-date software? Such as Gimp 2.4.6? Or is that only for sid?

what's wrong with sid? I've been running sid for a couple of years now and it's great, as long as you install apt-listbugs. It tells you what bugs are present in the updates, so you can decide if you update or not.

Maybe you could take a look at debian backports and debian volatile. I'm not sure if they are for stable and/or testing.

Stable is not updated by definition. Only security updates and severe bugs.

The other posters are right, Lenny is better for home/desktop/laptop use. However, Lenny breaks now and then the installation. Apt-listbugs should warn you, but *I* am not able to see whether or not a certain bug is breaking my system or not.

jlinkels

The Debian main branch is always rock-like, perfectly stable. My wife runs one Etch box and I'm running nine Etch boxes at work. If memory serves I think Lenny is due to be released to the main, stable branch in the very-near future (maybe this Fall). You could wait a bit or do a dist-upgrade.
I think I'll probably run Etch for some time as Debian supports their releases for a considerable time period (which is outstanding).

I've been running unstable (sid) for years and its been very stable, occasionally when things get re-packaged you'll have some inconsistency that might require manually installing or removing stuff but overall it works great (and the one bad time when they switched from 2.4 kernels to 2.6 kernels, that was a pain). You could also try sidux, its sid with fixes and a custom kernel, I tend to use that on Dell boxes since their kernels have always had the drivers I need for those boxes.

stable is more for servers, totally rock solid but getting security fixes.
testing some servers, developers at companies, some home use
unstable majority of home users should be here course that's just my opinion

I found that unstable might break the system occasionally - but nothing unfixable so long as you know how to use the dpkg command.

I run Testing now (Lenny currently) as it's still well updated but doesn't break much and I don't need the latest and greatest.

Might be worth checking Debian backports, here's a link:

http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

Hope you stay with Debian!

Regards
The trooper.