[wellylug] Debian vs Debian Woody

[Rik Wade]

On 26 Feb 2005, at 14:07, Steven Mulvay wrote:
> I completely agree with you that I would be better off to start with a 
> Woody version of Debian, for all the reasons you stated.
> Thank you very much for your responses.
>
> Although I did appreciate your response too Grant.

Starting off with Woody is fine. Like I said, it's a solid OS with 
great packing and update tools. Like Grant said, you will certainly 
find that you want to upgrade the distribution to Sarge or even Sid in 
order to obtain certain packages that you want to use. Normally, this 
is because Debian Stable uses quite old software releases in order to 
build its packages. This isn't a problem if you want stability - hence 
the name Stable, duh! But if you want features, you may well find 
yourself living with Sarge. Most people I know use Sarge. I did try 
using Sid for a while, but due to its very fluid nature, the sheer 
volume of package updates put me off.

There is also backports, http://www.backports.org, which provides ports 
of new software releases back to stable releases of Debian. Backports 
is quite a good way to add features to a stable Debian installation, 
but you can find yourself in a sticky situation if you start to depend 
too heavily on it. Going for Sarge may be a better plan unless it's 
just a small handful of newer packages you want to use.
--
rik wade