[xubuntu-users] 2014 Rolling release?

[bob]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 01:48:58 +0100
"Ralf Mardorf" <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 01:31:15 +0100, bob <bob.currie at bulkley.net> wrote:
> > Generally as time goes by bugs get fixed and systems improve in  
> > stability.  This is less likely to be the case with a rolling release  
> > model-the new versions will have new bugs.
> 
> This is completely nonsense. Add a testing repository, ask the community  
> to sign off packages and you get the most stable distro possible, a good  
> example for this practice is Arch Linux.
> 
> The drawback for rolling releases are exotic and very seldom transitions,  
> Arch Linux and Ubuntu are good examples for this.
> 
> The transition to upstart by Ubuntu didn't cause serious issues, but the  
> transition to systemd for Arch Linux did cause a lot of trouble. But how  
> often do we have such extreme transitions? I can't remember a second  
> transition like that.
> 
> Be aware that I'm a Ubuntu user, but it doesn't help us to claim something  
> that is nonsense. For good reasons I'm using other distros too.

Interestingly, as much as you consider what I wrote to be nonsense, I consider your reply to be the same.

As for adding a testing repository, are you suggesting using Debian testing repositories in Debian Stable?  Doesn't Debian recommend not doing that because things break? Certainly I've seen forum posts saying not to do so-for example http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=15612 and http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/debian-testing-vs-debian-stable-with-testing-repositories-708263/.  

I can't speak to Arch, never having used it.  I've mostly used Debian Stable (solid as a rock except when I made the mistake of mixing repositories as you seem to be suggesting,) Debian Testing (as advertised it would break from time to time-not too frequently, but enough to require more work than would have been suitable in the office,) Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Mandriva.  The LTS releases of Ubuntu 8.04, Mint (based on 10.04) and now Xubuntu 12.04 have been solid for me-though I've been conservative and don't install on a machine that needs to be stable (for example, on my secrataries' computers or my wife's computer) for a while after release, usually leaving a month or so for bugs to get ironed out.


                         b