[Tfug] Machine Rehabilitation

[Claude Rubinson]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 10:46:13AM -0700, Andrew Ayre wrote:
> Thanks for the list of reasons. Debian looks very appealing, but I tried
> searching to find out how long Etch will be supported for and couldn't find
> any information. It would be good to know.

Debian doesn't do releases in the traditional sense, so the question
is basically moot.  Basically, the stable release is a snapshot of the
codebase as a particular point in time (specifically, a point in time
at which there are a limited number of release critical bugs).
Security updates are handled by pointing apt to the security updates
repository and point releases (which, generally, are simply
collections of security updates) are handled by pointing apt to
../debian stable main.

Here's the thing.  Once you install, you simply stop worrying about it.
Having pointed your sources.list to ../debian stable main, the next
time that a stable version is released, your system will be seamlessly
upgraded.  No muss, no fuss, and no worrying about your system no
longer being supported.  Granted, it's a very different way of
thinking about it but in the end it means that you stop worrying about
your operating system and just focus on your work.

Rick Moen has a nice discussion of the concept of releases in Debian
over at http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/releases-unimportant.html

Hope this helps,

Claude