[PLUG] Reinstall, yet save everything

Michael Moore moore.michael.m at gmail.com
Sun Oct 25 21:45:23 UTC 2009


On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 9:18 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:

>
> Also, whatever I use must be pretty user friendly. I have no desire to
> spend hours googling and searching e-lists for answers to problems. If
> I want to play a DVD I want it to just work. And if the codecs are not
> installed by default, then I want the application to announce that fact
> and offer to install them without having to do hours of research to
> figure out which ones I need.

Debian kinda/sorta does that, but not quite with the degree of polish
that Ubuntu does.  But it is actually pretty easy to get what you need
simply by adding the unofficial-but-widely-used multimedia repository
to your sources list.  The website is:

http://debian-multimedia.org/

It has straightforward instructions.

> Furthermore, I want a major distro with tons of users. Ubuntu has a
> huge advantage in its forums. Responses to questions often come within
> minutes. I'm willing to give that up, but I'm not willing to use a
> distro where I have to wait all day for an answer.

With Debian, the major action is on the mailing lists, especially the
high-traffic debian-user list.  For more, see:

http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/

> I am a bit concerned about what Rogan said about Debian. I do want
> something reasonably up to date on the tech curve, but the name
> "testing" is a turn-off. But then, it is just going to be a one-week
> experiment.

The testing branch of Debian is, generally, more stable -- and
sometimes, more up-to-date -- than the latest Ubuntu release.
(Remember that Ubuntu takes Debian's *unstable* branch, freezes it,
tweaks it, and releases it.)  New or updated packages enter Debian's
experimental or unstable branch, stay there for at least 10 days, then
migrate to the testing branch if and only if they aren't causing any
problems in unstable.  Sometimes it might be longer than 10 days,
depending upon the size or complexity of the package(s).  If a problem
arises, a package doesn't migrate to testing.  At any given time,
there are lots and lots of packages in testing and unstable that are
at the same version number; there are lots of others with newer
versions in unstable than in testing.

At some point in the process, the Debian powers-that-be decide to get
ready for a release, so they freeze the testing branch and begin
fixing release-critical bugs and any other bugs they can.  This
process can be aggravatingly slow.  During this time, very few
packages migrate from unstable to testing.  Eventually, testing is
transformed from "testing" to "stable" and released.  Whatever was
"stable" becomes "old-stable."  At the same time, a new testing branch
is created and named, and the whole process starts anew.  The most
volatile period of the testing branch is right after a new release,
because a slew of packages (all those packages that had been held back
during the freeze) suddenly land in the "new" testing from unstable,
and that almost always causes some problems for various users,
depending upon what packages they're using.  Other than that, the
testing branch is usually pretty reliable.  There might be minor
glitches from time to time with certain packages (or the interactions
between certain packages), but nothing worse than users of Ubuntu or
other Debian-based distros encounter.  IIRC, it has been more than
three or four years since a major bug got into the testing branch that
rendered it crippled for most users.

Of course, that might mean they are due for another one.  :-)

Michael M.



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