Benefits of siduction from DE forum -- About Stability

[dibl]

There is an interesting thread on the DE side of this forum, where new user Wonko was asking about the difference between pure Sid and siduction, and about the stability of siduction in comparison to other distros.  With the help of google translator and a smattering of German I can read it, but I cannot write grammatical German, so I will put my two cents here for the English readers.


My experience from about 7 years of running sidux > aptosid > siduction is this: Most people, like Wonko, think about OS "stability" as an attribute of the installed OS itself.  In other words, it is an inherent characteristic, like the horsepower of a motor or the color of a car.  But I don't think this is the correct understanding of "stability" in the case of a rolling release like siduction.  Because of the way new packages and upgraded features of Debian sid are introduced, the system might run forever in the configuration it was in on Sunday, but be destroyed by a dist-upgrade on Monday.  For the wise user who is following the recommendations of the siduction development team, in reviewing the apt-get output, and checking the "Upgrade Warnings" forum here, the choice will be "n" on the dist-upgrade question on Monday, and that system will not be damaged by a temporary chaos situation in the Debian sid repos.  Therefore, I say that the stability of a siduction system is more a function of the user's care, and adherence to the official recommendations, than it is to any inherent attribute of the OS.  My sid-based systems have never become unstable just because they were Debian sid -- they only suffered if the user got careless and/or impatient and broke them.


I am writing this on my big desktop rig that I built in 2010.  I reconfigured the hardware in mid-2011 and reinstalled aptosid "Imera" on it, and then "cross-graded" it to siduction at the beginning of 2012. This morning I ran d-u and pulled in towo's new 3.15-rc5 kernel, plus the available sid upgraded packages, and rebooted.  I am confident it will be running 24/7 until the next kernel becomes available, because it is very stable.   

[ayla]

Therefore, I say that the stability of a siduction system is more a function of the user's care, and adherence to the official recommendations, than it is to any inherent attribute of the OS.  My sid-based systems have never become unstable just because they were Debian sid -- they only suffered if the user got careless and/or impatient and broke them.

Good point dibl, but I like to add that I see the stability also depending on the care the distributors lay into their choice of packages and the speed fixes are delivered and herefore siduction seems a good choice.

Using sidux/aptosid/siduction since early 2008 I never had an experience of more stability -besides debian stable. Not speaking of any windows ever installed on my machines. Don't know what I've done to my various trys on ubuntu and opensuse to break them most regularly, besides trying new software...

So I would say it's both, inherence and personally caress that make my systems stable.

Greets
ayla

and sorry for the grammars...

[dibl]

Ayla, Dein Englisch ist viel besser als mein deutsche Rede.   

[ayla]

Hmm... I don't have this impression when reading your german posts. Most are good understandable and clear.


Besides, because I have seen some bickering in times, -not on you personally- I don't care reading an english post in a german subforum or vice versa. If it's helpful it's good to have it and one can translate if need be. :-)


Greets
Ayla

[bluelupo]

Hi dibl,
one understands you well when you write in German here. I myself still able to speak the English language not very good, but Google Translate helps one further. I've always understood you until now;-)

-----------DE-----------

Hi dibl,
man versteht dich gut wenn du auf deutsch hier schreibst. Ich selbst beherrsche auch nicht besonders gut die englische Sprache, aber Google Translate hilft einen weiter. Ich habe dich bis jetzt immer verstanden ;-)

[piper]

dibl, your german is better than mine

[dibl]

Heh -- thanks.  Before I travelled the first time to Germany, I bought a set of audio CDs to learn some conversational German, and I played them and practiced while commuting to and from work.  So I learned quite a few useful phrases, such as

"Where is the bathroom?"
"Which road leads to the airport?"
"I'll have the Saumagen."  etc.



But I never took the time to learn any grammar, so I can't write a respectable German sentence without pulling up Systran or something to help me put it together. I did buy a German grammar textbook, but it's never come up to the top of my priority list.

[devil]

...But I never took the time to learn any grammar, so I can't write a respectable German sentence...

Don't worry, Germans can't do that either.


greetz
devil

[Meister]

Hello Everyone -

I'm fairly new to siduction (second day using) and I'm actually happy I found this thread. I was thinking the exact same question today about the differences between siduction, and Debian Sid. I think I have a grasp on the differences, but I do have some questions:

1.) Are all the packages and repo's coming directly through Sid, or are they somehow filtered through a siduction repo to check for breakages, etc and then allowed through?

2.) I saw a mention of using a forum to check for breakages, etc. Is there any advice you could give someone new as far as upgrades go? Should I just bookmark the forum subsection, should I not upgrade daily? I have a habit of upgrading every day throughout the years, is this bad practice in siduction?

Thanks for any insight and help you can give! I appologize if I should have started a new forum topic instead of posting here if I shouldn't have.

[der_bud]

Welcome Meister
to your first question, if you investigate the files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/* (or use the command inxi -r) you will find that there are lines directing to debian, so you'll get unfiltered sid. Sometimes, if packages break and fixes/patches are known, it is likely that these get uploaded to siduction/fixes with a higher version, so the fixed packages gets preference until debian catches up. Other siduction-stuff are for example some helper-scripts or configurations, and if you like you might get newer versions of some DEs (KDE for example) before debian has them.

To your second question, as it is always a good idea to check the warnings in this forum before distupgrading, it can and will happen (this is sid) that things break and you are the first who gets hit by it or others did not have the time to write a warning. So besides forum you should ALWAY WATCH the output of your apt commands and never ever hit 'Yes' without thinking. Often seen here is the advice to

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apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -dy

which  will only download all upgradeable stuff but not install it. Then with 'apt-get dist-upgrade' check the output if packages will get removed - if yes make an educated guess if they get reinstalled by a successor or in a newer version or if you do not need them, and if in doubt just wait some hours.

[piper]

I have a habit of upgrading every day throughout the years, is this bad practice in siduction?

This is very good practice,  especially in sid.
Like said above, just watch what apt says, if not sure, come here or irc.

sid updates 4 times a day, the longer you wait  to dist-upgrade the more problems/breakage/borked can happen.

The norm would be to not go over 2 weeks without a du (distupgrade).

Welcome to siduction !

[Meister]

Thanks guys, I feel more comfortable now that I know how things work. I appreciate the advice and I'll be sure to put it to use. I may have only been using siduction for a day or two, but I'm loving it already. 

[dibl]

... should I not upgrade daily? I have a habit of upgrading every day throughout the years, is this bad practice in siduction?

Daily, weekly, or semi-monthly -- it doesn't really matter.  The key is, (a) look at what

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apt-get dist-upgrade is telling you, especially with respect to "Remove", and (b) if you see something concerning, check "Upgrade Warnings" on this forum.  You will never break your system by waiting -- only by running d-u without looking.   

[sunrat]

My name is sunrat and it's been 33 days since my last dist-upgrade.  I delayed it due to upgrade warning in the forum and not being at the computer much lately.
I just did dist-upgrade (over 600MB) and almost all went smoothly, except for sound which is a side issue. Clementine and QMMP couldn't find the correct card, although Amarok and System Settings audio test worked. My computer has 3 sound cards so I finally got round to setting them in the correct order by making a /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf file. All fixed and swinging now. 

[vilde]

I would say, not from knowing anything about sid but from all this years as user that I do not have more more problem with longer times between d-us than shorter times, in fact the opposite. I have maintained a few computers many years, some I do d-u on very often, like every day up to like 5-10 times every month, some other computers situated on other locations have been done d-u on only between 3 and 6 times every year and it has never been a problem as I know because the long time between the d-u:s. Possibly there can be other issues like security ones doing d-u very seldom but that's the only way I can maintain these computers

Doing d-u very often makes me run in to this small issues which normally will be solved by waiting then and then. Most issues will either solve them selves or be solved by debian or siduction maintainers, so statisticly (Wrong spelled, spell-check still don't work for me on this forum) I run in to less problems if I do d-u not so often.