Experiences with Debian stable on the desktop (few questions)?
by kukibl from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5760Q)
Hello all!
I'm using Linux since 2003/04 (for quite some time exclusively) but last few years I have been completely disconnected from the Linux world ("disconnected" in sense that I did not know what Mate and Cinnamon are and that current branch is 5.x /when I "left" it was 3.x/). With the new custom-built PC at home, I figured out that I do not have good reasons to run Windows, so it is great opportunity to return to Linux.
I'm waging my options still and I would prefer very stable base with decent/long support. I do not care about latest&greatest user software (except few apps), as long I have supported and updated (security-wise) system. Debian stable is actually one of the systems that fits my requirements perfectly (large community, amazing package management and repositories, great support, quite transparent and "free"), however based on my testing in VirtualBox, I have few questions/concerns:
1) Backports - is it safe / good idea to keep the system fully updated against backports? I see that 5.4 kernel is also there?
2) Backports do not have all the software I need, so I found following link: https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation. However, I tried to build last evening the packages for SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) 2.x and Chicken Scheme 5.x from testing branch and both of them failed. I was unable to solve it by simply Googling, but I did not bother too much considering it is virtual machine. Can anyone share their personal experience with building the newer packages on stable and is there solution for this (unless switching to testing)?
3) Newer kernels - I assume this guide should be used https://kernel-team.pages.debian.net...ommon-official? The reason I need newer kernel is that by testing different Live distros, I noticed the only one where everything works properly is actually Fedora 32 - the only distro that had kernel newer than 5.4 (it's 5.7) (the main issue for me is AMD GPU at the moment).
The reason I do not want testing branch is (unless I'm misinformed) that it is kind of rolling release and I have never been fond of rolling release model (in general I do not care that much for administrating system).
Sorry for the long post and I hope my doubts are clear enough. Thank you very much for your time.
I'm using Linux since 2003/04 (for quite some time exclusively) but last few years I have been completely disconnected from the Linux world ("disconnected" in sense that I did not know what Mate and Cinnamon are and that current branch is 5.x /when I "left" it was 3.x/). With the new custom-built PC at home, I figured out that I do not have good reasons to run Windows, so it is great opportunity to return to Linux.
I'm waging my options still and I would prefer very stable base with decent/long support. I do not care about latest&greatest user software (except few apps), as long I have supported and updated (security-wise) system. Debian stable is actually one of the systems that fits my requirements perfectly (large community, amazing package management and repositories, great support, quite transparent and "free"), however based on my testing in VirtualBox, I have few questions/concerns:
1) Backports - is it safe / good idea to keep the system fully updated against backports? I see that 5.4 kernel is also there?
2) Backports do not have all the software I need, so I found following link: https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation. However, I tried to build last evening the packages for SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) 2.x and Chicken Scheme 5.x from testing branch and both of them failed. I was unable to solve it by simply Googling, but I did not bother too much considering it is virtual machine. Can anyone share their personal experience with building the newer packages on stable and is there solution for this (unless switching to testing)?
3) Newer kernels - I assume this guide should be used https://kernel-team.pages.debian.net...ommon-official? The reason I need newer kernel is that by testing different Live distros, I noticed the only one where everything works properly is actually Fedora 32 - the only distro that had kernel newer than 5.4 (it's 5.7) (the main issue for me is AMD GPU at the moment).
The reason I do not want testing branch is (unless I'm misinformed) that it is kind of rolling release and I have never been fond of rolling release model (in general I do not care that much for administrating system).
Sorry for the long post and I hope my doubts are clear enough. Thank you very much for your time.