I haven't used Debian in a while, so yes, maybe "stable" is not the right branch for me. I would have been looking for something that you install once, and the

I haven't used Debian in a while, so yes, maybe "stable" is not the right branch for me. I would have been looking for something that you install once, and then it just works without intervention for a long time. But at the same time I also want to have access to some latest software, without relying on third party repositories (because the chance of breakage is very high) or compiling myself (because then I have to track versions manually). When I think of a "stable" system, I expect that the underpinning is stable, no structural changes. Don't laugh, but Windows XP was a bit like that for many people. Install it, confirm the occasional update, and it just keeps running for a decade. (Of course, not with the level of security I would expect from a Linux system...) If I really want a frozen version of an app, I can just pin the version or compile it myself. I think this is a very general problem in the Linux world today, you can choose between "frozen" (stable, LTS) and "unstable" (frequent releases, rolling). There is no "stable underpinning, fresh apps" distribution, although the Linux/glibc undersystem is incredibly backwards compatible. If you compile all the neccessary libraries, you can install almost everything on a distro a few generations old. But it is very odious, and would be great if you didn't have to do it. Probably you're right and I should give unstable a try next time. Or maybe an alternative would be to make backports more self-contained, so that they would pull in dependent packages (thereby breaking other apps)? Maybe containers like snap etc. are a solution? [Edit: cut down verbosity]