i did some reading on the debian versions that are around, so i noticed some aobut the SARGE version.
I'm currently running a debain woody machen and it fits me well.

So my question is: what is the difference betreween the debian sarge and woody version?
and when will the STABLE sarge version be released

thnx in advance

AFAIK, Sarge (aka Testing) is now frozen, and they are now ironing out most bugs. Last I heard (but I don't follow the mailinglist) is that Sarge (which will become "Stable" version) has an ETA this month. The new Testing will have another name.

/TLV

Reportedly the new testing's name will be "etch".

When will Sarge become stable? Will this make Debian more up to date? Will this herald the start of more frequent version updates to things like KDE and Gnome via apt-get/dselect?

Craigwd > Sarge will be 'out' in a month (maybe two), Woody will be archived, a new testing version will appear to get new packages from Sid (which stays the unstable version and allways will be)

Just like Woody has them now, Sarge will get its backports for newer version of KDE and other software, so keep an eye out.

As discussed in other threads: Debian is as up to date as you want it to be (to a certain point of course). Do Stable if you're really paranoid and/or are running servers etc. Testing should work the best for regular desktops at home. Sid is for the ones who like to live on the edge. I've been running Testing since my Debian introduction and I haven't had any major problems.

Sarge is in the process of becoming the Stable release (I've seen September 15 as a tentative date but don't quote me - as I said, I don't follow the mailinglist). My suggestion (and plan) is to stay with Sarge for a couple of month, and then go with Testing once they've decided what to do with XFree86 vs. X.org (upgrading X may be a tricky business...)

Just my two cents. Read the forums and Linux news sites to get the latest.

/TLV

i have been running testing with some SID programs mix in for long time without problems...
2.6.8 kernel for example...

If you're stlll running Woody, it's likely you have a server. And if it ain't broke ...
But you may want to upgrade for the kernel image 2.4.27 vs 2.4.18 on x86, and if you're really brave 2.6.7 is available. But most will probably lean to 2.4. People will want to upgrade for the added hardware support and to ditch backports, which can be messy. Sarge should be released by the late September or early Oct.

Compared to Woody, Sarge is excellent for the desktop. I run kernel 2.6.7 and KDE 3.2.3 (compared to 2.2 in Woody) and enjoy a slew of up-to-date desktop applications. (I will be posting a review of Sarge shortly.) No one can say anymore that Debian is out of date, at least for the next six months.

I would suggest that if you're setting up or updating a server, wait until the official release and most critical bugs will be squashed by then. For the desktop, go ahead and load Sarge and 2.6 right now.

What about on a laptop? Which of the two would be better for a laptop: Morphix or Sarge? I'm curious because Morphix is being a pain in the butt about my network card not working atm.

@Craigwd

You can use your laptop either as a server or a desktop (or in both purposes simultaneously).

Morphix is basically Debian Sid modified to work as Live CD. Morphix used to be (well, it still is) one of the "easy Debian installers". But now Sarge is very easy to install so it makes better sense to use Morphix where you need a Live CD and use the Sarge installer to install Debian on HDD.

Morphix has ported some RedHat GUI config apps to Debian, but you can get them also for Sarge by adding the Morphix repo to your sources.list. You can explore the available Morphix packages here: http://www.morphix.org/debian/ (The packages are in the binaries/ directory and readme tells what to put into your sources.list.)

For a laptop, I would suggest Sarge and 2.6.7. You'll want the latest support for PCMCIA, onboard sound, ACPI, firewire and, maybe, wireless NIC (though it may be wishful thinking.) Not long ago, I tried Kanotix on an older laptop (800MHz Athlon mobile) for fun. To my surprise, everything worked quite well with 2.6.7. Only trouble was sleep/suspend -- it froze solid requiring a reset. I didn't troubleshoot since I had to return the machine with a fresh install of 'doze. More info can be found here:
http://acpi.sourceforge.net

Morphix is somewhat of a hack but good for its intended purpose. And I see they're close to a fresh release, too. Personally, I wouldn't rely on it for a trusted workstation, not with the current ease of the new Debian installer. But YMMV.

Suspend/resume has been a problem for laptops for quite some time now. The problem is that graphics (especially ATI cards), sound, and/or USB may freak out when resuming the laptop.

APM seems to be working the best at the moment. I'm running APM on my IBM ThinkPad, and I suspend/resume without a problem. People are starting to report suspend/resume success with ACPI using kernel 2.8.1 and the latest ACPI patches.

My suggestion is to try to find web-sites, mailinglists, and forums that specifically focus on your laptop brand. One place to start is http://tuxmobil.org/

/TLV

I have another question: I would use Sarge except whenever I install it LILO is configured incorrectly, whereas Morphix does that right. If I could just get my ethernet working reliably under Morphix I think Morphix would be a perfect match for me (Currently I'm using Morphix Gamer .4-1. I like IceWM better than KDE at the moment.).

The default bootloader in Sarge is Grub. I guess you have used the "expert" (or "expert26") option to get Lilo instead. Sarge's Grub works fine in my laptop.

Re-configuring Lilo shouldn't be too difficult if you spend some time studying it. I suggest that you use the search engine here at LinuxQuestions.org. Select Debian as search forum and Lilo as search word. Browsing what problems other users have experienced and what solutions have been suggested may help you to configure Lilo successfully.

If you like Morphix Gamer, you can build a similar setup also in Sarge. I'd suggest that you first install just the base system. Then configure network, point /etc/apt/sources.list to "unstable", and run "apt-get update" && "apt-get dist-upgrade". Next you can launch aptitude and install "x-window-system" & "icewm" packages from the "x11" directory. Then you can explore the "games" directory and install all the games you wish.

You may want to save lilo.conf and XF86Config-4 files from your existing Morphix installation on floppy, or you can print them. Studying these files may help you to overcome some problems in configuring Sarge.