[bgribble]

I have used unstable as my daily driver since they named it "unstable", which I don't even remember what that was but at least 20 years ago.

I have never (yet!) gotten myself into any trouble, by following a very simple principle: if aptitude (dselect back in the day) wants to remove or hold more than a handful of packages, STOP. Undo what you just did, and instead of a bulk upgrade go through marking one package at a time for upgrade. When you hit one that needs major changes, if you can't find an upgrade alternative that is sensible, leave it un-upgraded and try again in a few days.

This time upgrade has been one of the more challenging ones to track in unstable, but patience and actually reading the reasons that dpkg reports for why it wants to do something has gotten me through it.

[neilv]

Back when I was running Debian `unstable` (Sid?), I was always slightly nervous that an update could make the system unbootable, or otherwise ruin my day, when I had other things to do.

So I wrote a lighthearted theme song for `unstable` updates. I don't recall most of it offhand, but it was to the tune of "Cat's in the Cradle":

    o/~ What I'd really like now
        is to update your libc.
        See you later,
        can you apt-get please?

At some point, Linux software stopped improving so quickly, and Debian Stable seemed better. And I've been very happy with it, for most all startup and personal purposes.

[Grimeton]

(S)id (I)s (D)angerous