I need to get the newest debian release but i'm not sure which one it would be...

The latest release is Woody (r4 if I'm right), aka stable. But do you really want that one? Basically, a release within Debian terms is the current stable version. You can get Sarge, a newer, "unreleased", version, which works just fine. And if you really want to be up-to-date go get Sid

Anyway, check www.debian.org to see which one fits you.

Sid eh?
It's the first time i hear about it, ok i'll go get it, thanks.

btw... why are those releases are so big? the r4 is 7 cd's without the updates and the sarge is 15 according to this page:
http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/cd-images/...torrents/i386/

That is the full CD set, which means that the 7/15 CDs contain ALL the programs you can install at the moment under Debian. Which you really don't need. If you have a speed-reliable network connection the first CD is enough to get started and get the rest over the net. You can even use for take off a smaller, 120 MB image which does the same thing. See here: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
This is for sarge , which I recommend between Woody and sid. Woody is kind of dated and sid might not be what you want...after all is known as "unstable".

Mmh, testing is also called testing now isn't it. I've been running unstable for more than a year now and haven't had many problems with it. Debian seems to be overly conservative about releases while the packages in testing are often older than other distros have in their normal releases, and not just now while it's almost frozen.
Still, you can go with testing and if you later want unstable it's just a dist-upgrade away.

Ya debian being overly conservative is what makes stable...really stable.

I too been useing unstable .....ever since woody came out,i commented stable testing out and went unstable.
Unstable just doesnt have security patches....its debians version of bleeding edge.Still,very stable.
Once in awhile apt-get will give errors or some packages will not load but usually thats taken care of within week or two at worst.Problem is people see errors and freak!!

So true...


Then again, if you see "Kernel Panic" or such, maybe then freaking out is allowed.
But yeah, debian is really good when it comes to fixing things up- why, I remember an update of something going horribly wrong only to have it fixed an hour later... that's dedication. As for the original topic, i'd stay clear of stable if you want a usable system... it's not going to crash or give you errors, but it's JUST SO OLD! :P

AFAIK unstable doesn't need security patches. When they find a hole in a package they test a new version in unstable, if it works it goes to testing and after more tests it goes to stable as a security patch. While testing normally gets packages from unstable after it seems to work reasonably well, security patches are used faster, hence the name security patch.

Very true and probably the reason why people shrink from using unstable, as well as from the name of course
If it was called just SID instead of unstable people would probably happily install and use it.

[ot]advice[/ot]

when upgradeing....never do -y so you can see exactly what apt-get has up its sleeve.
If its gonna upgrade anything that you are presently running like X or kde etc., just end session....drop to console and run apt-get dist-upgrade
then head back to X via kdm or startx whatever.I personally never apt-get upgrade I always dist-upgrade but thats me.But the point is you will see less errors.
Installing apt-listbugs
apt-listchanges
debsums etc will help keep you "in-the-know" as far as debian unstable broken packages.Add yourself to debian security mailing list too.Stay on top of the distributions moves via there website...forums and news articals.

just a thought