Re: [LAU] Audio distros

On 16/02/13 14:40, Ralf Mardorf wrote: in Debian unstable means changing (4 times a day I think), stable means frozen ... i.e. you have the choice of a version with very current packages (obviously also somewhat less tested) or one which is very much more tested but based on a freeze that was 6 months ago when it is first released, up to 30 months ago by the time it is replaced by next stable version. The freeze really means frozen, but there is the backports system with newer packages if you want. One way to use sid is install it on a second partition, work with it for a bit updating only those few bits that need the fresh fixes ... then once you get the system working as you want ... leave it alone! Forget about the system and do your audio. Some time later you may be tempted by some new features in versions that are now months ahead of the rest of your system, here you need to be careful. Apt-get will show you what it is about to do, say no if it is too drastic! Best copy your system to that other partition so you have a known fully working backup ... then upgrade etc. Something that the (now quite inactive) aptosid did so they could offer a rolling sid using dist-upgrade was they set up a special runlevel in init without X for doing the upgrades in text mode. It isn't that hard, just tweak the /etc/rc.d directories and do init 3 (or whatever) before upgrading. And yes, init and run levels are the default in the soon to be released new stable so it will be default there for another two years. They tend to be very conservative with core system stuff. I used aptosid for many years without a hitch, but they kept a close eye on problems and held back updates with issues so you could dist-upgrade from time to time quite safely. Eventually you will want to upgrade properly ... install a fresh, current sid in your other partition or whatever and get it set up as you like it before swapping to that as your main system. The other very workable Debian option is to use the current stable with a few newer packages from backports. You get much less of the latest, but you do not live on the edge either. I haven't done that but there are at least a few audio packages that get their newish versions ported on backports.