[wellylug] Debian vs Debian Woody

[Cliff Pratt]

Rik Wade wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 
I don't know what release you'd call my systems. They 
started from three floppies and have grown from there. They 
are mixed, with packages from Stable, Testing, and Unstable. 
I pin the system at Stable, but I can install packages from 
any version merely by adding another parameter to apt-get. 
To my mind this is the best solution if you want to 
experiment with newer packages.

Here's a reasonable reference on pinning:
http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

He does miss the point that you should set your default 
release in apt.conf too:
APT::Default-Release "stable";

Cheers,

Cliff