input needed on Debian

[Ken Moffat]

Gary wrote:

>I spent a lot of time with RH, and switched back to SUSE about 8 months
>ago, It is fine, excellent distro. I was thinking about moving some
>personal desktops, and maybe a mail/dns server or two over to Debian.
>Don't want Fedora as an offering, not a test bed for RH's enterprise, for
>me, plus poor life cycle. So, I was thinking about Debian..
>
>Woody is the stable version, Sarge their testing v.. It seems to me that
>one of the disadvantages of Debian is that Woody uses older versions of
>programs. If I use the newer Sarge, from what I understand, Deb does not
>support security updates on Sarge, only Woody... Is this true?
>
>Any input / thoughts appreciated.
>
>
>  
>

I'd recommend woody for a server. The app versions are older but rock 
solid and there are frequent security updates.

As for testing, it's very stable also. Programs are frequently updated, 
so security updates go with the routine program updates.

I run Libranet, a Debian based distro, which is a mix of the testing and 
unstable branches. Nice install and good admin utility.

Personally, for Debian desktops, I'd give unstable a try for the 
personal machines. It's quite up to date and not really unstable, no 
matter what it's called.

You might give Slackware a look also, at least for the server, if not 
for everything. They have a couple of "apt-get" like utilities if 
upgrading is a hassle for you. There are up to date packages available 
for slack, it installs very lean, making it very responsive.

-- 
Ken