Sidux stability?

[Collins Richey]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Ed Jabbour <ejbr at att.net> wrote:
> Someone, I've forgotten who, mentioned that he - she? - uses sidux. which is
>  based on unstable Debian.  Debian sid is referred to as the "unstable"
>  branch.  Has Sidux somehow stabilized sid, and if so, how good a job have
>  they done?  I have an HP laptop and Ubuntu just ain't doin' it.

I've been running sidux on desktop and laptop since late October, and
until recently it's been rock-solid stable. I've only encountered 3
hits in that period of time, and all were fixed within hours/days.
However, Debian has introduced some changes to gtk+ and related
graphics libraries that render mozilla browsers unstable. Like most
Debian distros, the iceweasel fork is the primary choice, but I've
also been running swiftfox. At present iceweasel is prone to segfault
several times a day, swiftfox less often. It's a little better since
the upgrades last week.

There are several things to keep in mind about sidux.

1. It's a kde distro (yeah!)
2. The upgrades are a lot more frequent. You need to upgrade more
frequently - at least every 2-3 weeks - and there will be 80-150
packages each time.
3. Since this is the unstable branch, you need to use apt-get
dist-upgrade instead of upgrade. A plain upgrade is guaranteed to
break the system at some point.
4. Sidux uses the standard runlevels 1-5 unlike most debian systems,
and the use of any of the gui mode update products are strongly
contra-indicated. All dist-upgrades are to be performed at runlevel 3
(no X running). You get to keep both pieces if you don't follow the
rules.
5. The sidux developers have created a batch script to (smxi) perform
the updates in the proper sequence. The kernel is upgraded first (if
any), and you should reboot to runlevel 3 before continuing. Then, any
upgrades to glibc and related libraries are done, then a standard
dist-upgrade. Then you are offered the opportunity to resync fonts and
to upgrade things like nVidia, etc., etc. Finally, you resume runlevel
5, although I prefer to perform a second reboot, especially if a lot
of kde packages were replaced.
6. There are automated procedures for keeping wireless, virtualbox,
nVidia, and ATI up to date. There is a reliable batch script call Ceni
for configuring wireless.
7. There is no email list, but the forum is quite good, and unlike
Ubuntu where the developers hide away in an ivory tower, the primary
sidux developers participate fully in responding to questions.
8. If you want to practice your German, the distro is based in Berlin,
and there's a lot of activity in the German forum.

Another thing that has changed for the worse lately is the fact that
the great geniuses in debian land have decided to rework how the
kernel upgrades are performed, and in typical unstable fashion they
didn't really test this. The sidux kernel developer is working to fix
this, but kernel upgrades are disabled until he can straighten out the
crap.

One final comment, nothing is quite so unstable as a Ubuntu
development release. They don't test squat before releasing it.




-- 
Collins Richey
 If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
 of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.