4 ms·

I used Debian stable as my primary OS for a couple of years. While I was just fine without the fancy desktop, at the time Firefox was stuck on version 3.0 even

by Wilduck 14y ago

I used Debian stable as my primary OS for a couple of years. While I was just fine without the fancy desktop, at the time Firefox was stuck on version 3.0 even though 3.6 was available. I don't know what the situation is like now, since I haven't used linux on my laptop for a couple years, but if I were to go back, I would want something like Debian stable, but with an updated browser.

pdw 14y ago
There's now the backports service, http://backports.debian.org/ http://backports.debian.org/ where you can get newer versions of packages recompiled for stable.
- munchhausen 14y ago
  And using this service of course partially defeats the point of using Debian stable at all, at least for the packages that you install from backports.
  - NegativeK 14y ago
    I can imagine it being more useful for things that are easily fixable/less critical. I was running a testing desktop, and X updated in a way that broke the proprietary nVidia drivers (nVidia's fault -- not Debian's.) That was quite annoying to suddenly have to fix. Those types of issues (though rare, even in testing) would be nice to avoid.
re_todd 14y ago
Debian's idea of stable really means super duper rock-solid extremely stable. Which is ok, but I had a hard time running newer software on it. I now use Debian Testing, which is most people's idea of stable. Several debian-derived distros are based on Testing, so it's probably ok.
sethrin 14y ago
I am using Crunchbang, which is based on Debian stable. It is trivial to download and install either Firefox or Chrome from the internet, and they automatically update themselves (FF since v12; the betas have had auto-update for longer). For a more general solution you could look into apt-pinning, but there are some downsides depending on which way you go about it.

4 ms·

I used Debian stable as my primary OS for a couple of years. While I was just fine without the fancy desktop, at the time Firefox was stuck on version 3.0 even

by Wilduck 14y ago

pdw 14y ago
There's now the backports service, http://backports.debian.org/ http://backports.debian.org/ where you can get newer versions of packages recompiled for stable.
- munchhausen 14y ago
  And using this service of course partially defeats the point of using Debian stable at all, at least for the packages that you install from backports.
  - NegativeK 14y ago
    I can imagine it being more useful for things that are easily fixable/less critical. I was running a testing desktop, and X updated in a way that broke the proprietary nVidia drivers (nVidia's fault -- not Debian's.) That was quite annoying to suddenly have to fix. Those types of issues (though rare, even in testing) would be nice to avoid.
re_todd 14y ago
Debian's idea of stable really means super duper rock-solid extremely stable. Which is ok, but I had a hard time running newer software on it. I now use Debian Testing, which is most people's idea of stable. Several debian-derived distros are based on Testing, so it's probably ok.
sethrin 14y ago
I am using Crunchbang, which is based on Debian stable. It is trivial to download and install either Firefox or Chrome from the internet, and they automatically update themselves (FF since v12; the betas have had auto-update for longer). For a more general solution you could look into apt-pinning, but there are some downsides depending on which way you go about it.