[Tfug] Debian Sarge Question

[Harry McGregor]

On Thu, 2003-11-06 at 11:14, Darrenn Jackson wrote:
> Newbie question:
> 
> What is the difference between the various "flavors" of Debian (Sarge, 
> woody, potato)?

Ham = prehistoric
Slink = Even yuckier older stable
Potato = Yucky old stable
Woody = Current Stable
Sarge = Current Testing/Almost Frozen/Soon to be new stable
Sid = Unstable, will probably always be unstable (sid = mean kid next
door, as well as Still In Development).

Other ways of expressing versions in your apt sources is "stable"
"testing" and "unstable"

In the debian archive these are symbolic links, can can, and do change
what they point at.

When Woody became stable the symbolic link from stable to potato was
changed to point at woody.  Everyone who was running stable and did an
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade was upgraded to woody from potato
seamlessly (or at least seamless in 99% of cases).

I tend to use a specific release instead of type of release on my
servers.  I most of my servers either have "woody" or "sid" listed, and
not "stable" or "unstable", I want to make the determination on when the
upgrade will happen.  Also if you use "sarge", you will stick with sarge
through testing, and continue as it becomes the "stable" version.

For a nebiew, your best out starting with stable for at least long
enough to learn the debian specific commands (apt, dselect, etc).  The
most common issues with testing and unstable are during package
installation and upgrade, and they are usually fixed quickly 24-48
hours.  For this reason, while most of my servers run unstable, I tend
to do upgrades on friday nights, giving me saturday and sunday to fix
any issues.

			Harry

> Darrenn

--
Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
Hmcgregor at osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org
A non-profit tax exempt charitable organization