Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

shadowfirebird · 2022-12-13 18:54:23

Short version: I quite fancy upgrading to Testing and getting a sort of rolling release thing going.

Anyone tried it with Beryllium? Bad idea?

I know I'm jumping the the gun by quite a way here. It's just, I'm doing stuff with synthesizers. In no time at all I'll find I can't install some new toy because it needs the latest library. (Most of the b*****s writing the toys seem to be on Arch, the mad fools.)

rbh · 2022-12-13 19:22:37

shadowfirebird wrote:

Short version: I quite fancy upgrading to Testing and getting a sort of rolling release thing going.

I have some boxes running BL Beryllium/Debian Bookworm. I would advice you against trying to use testing in the sources and get it rolling. It is better to do a controlled update/upgrade/dist-upgrade. I use to wait some moths after new testing is released before upgrading. Might be unnecessarily cautious...
If you want to try a rolling Bunsenlabs, you can tro Bunsenlabs/Sid. But that can sometimes break. It happend for my bl/sid-box 2 years ago, took some day to fix.

I know I'm jumping the the gun by quite a way here. It's just, I'm doing stuff with synthesizers. In no time at all I'll find I can't install some new toy because it needs the latest library.

If you have disk enough, you can test to dualboot and share /home.
You have enabled backports and found it not enought?

shadowfirebird · 2022-12-13 20:28:25

It's the other way about, really. I've got a new machine with a new install of Beryllium on it, and I thought that if I was going to do something risky I should try it now, not once I'm settled in and using it.

From the sound of it, it might be a bit too chancy for me. I'm sure if I add in backports I'll have 12 months before the latest upgrade of VCV Rack or Bespoke Synth breaks...

Thanks for the input.

Sector11 · 2022-12-14 13:17:22

Years ago when I use to play and distro hop I ran Debian SID as my main system for about a year I think and "I" finally broke it.

I had Debian Stable as well and since all my "personal files" were on a separate partition as they are today I didn't lose anything except a little pride. SID is a lot more stable than Testing they use to say and my guess still is if you take care.

I have
/dev/sda1 = / = Deb 11.5
/dev/sda2 = /home self explanitory
/dev/sda3 = /media/5 = images wallpapers doc files conkys etc
/dev/sda4 = /media/10 = OLD conkys, DEB files, ISO's etc
/dev/sda5 = /boot/efi
/dev/sda6 = /media/11 = odds-n-odds
/dev/sda7 = /msdia/12 = PDFs of bills paid.

I use this in conky because Debian does use decimal points:

 14 Dec 22 @ 09:59:28 ~
   $ cat /etc/debian_version
11.5

IMHO: Always a good idea to have 3 partitions minimum: /, /home and /media/x or /mnt/x - where x = personal files - things you do not want to lose. For me just using numbers make it easier.

BACK UP!! BACK UP!! BACK UP!!
I do it to a couple of external harddrives
a bash script using rysinc does it for me:
/M5
/M10
/M11
/M12
/S11-Dec (/home)
/S11-Nov (/home)
/S11-Oct (/home)

and a few odd files I just want to keep safe
I manually delete the older "monthly home" backups when they get to 5 or 6 months showing.

rbh · 2022-12-14 21:51:27

shadowfirebird wrote:

I've got a new machine

Do you have enough disk to create a partittion to test Bookworm?

From the sound of it, it might be a bit too chancy for me.

Neither using backports nor runing bookworm is "chancy". Running sid, gives a slight increased risk of system breaking.

Debian is not ment to be a rolling distribution. Having "stable" or "testing" in the sources.list is to beg for problems when new release is pushed. Using the releasename of the testing version in sources.list is nearly as risky as running the stable version.
But Bunsenlabs runs just as well with Sid and testing as with stable debian.

There should not be any risk of loosing data if a sid-installation breaks. If the system can't boot or cant start X, the file-system is intact.

rbh · 2022-12-14 22:46:05

shadowfirebird wrote:

Bespoke Synth

Ah, see that Bespoke Synth has its own repo and is only supported on Debian 10 and 11.
So, if you want to run Bespoke Synth, you have to keep to Stable Debian.

hhh · 2022-12-16 09:26:45

Forget Testing, Unstable is where you want to be for a rolling debian release. Why?

Unstable is more current than testing. Fixes for Unstable come quicker than for Testing, the path for most fixes is "Unstable>Testing>Stable". Testing fixes have to be deemed good enough for the next Stable release. Unstable fixes just have to work on the Unstable Desktop, which, by the time of the Testing/Stable Release soft-freeze, is nearly identical to testing anyway.

So...

Install Debian/BL stable and dist-upgrade to Unstable, or install siduction and strip it down to an Openbox session with BL sources enabled, or just run the DE you downloaded without any BL interference if you don't use Openbox.

Run 'sudo apt update' a couple of times a week, at least, and follow the siduction dist-upgrade recommendations when upgrading packages.

Follow the siduction forums for breakage.

Profit.

Siduction...
https://siduction.org/installation-media/

Unstable upgrade handbook...
https://manual.siduction.org/sys-admin-apt_en.html

Upgrade warnings...
https://forum.siduction.org/index.php?board=22.0

hhh · 2022-12-16 09:44:45

Note... When I say run "apt update" frequently, I mean it. Unstable normally gets updates 4 times a day. You come back in a month without having run updates, who knows what upgrade/dependency hell you'll find yourself in. Even Ubuntu LTS requires very frequent apt maintenance, including running 'sudo apt install' on packages that have been "held back" by apt.

#1 2022-12-13 18:54:23

Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

#2 2022-12-13 19:22:37

Re: Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

#3 2022-12-13 20:28:25

Re: Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

#4 2022-12-14 13:17:22

Re: Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

#5 2022-12-14 21:51:27

Re: Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

#6 2022-12-14 22:46:05

Re: Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

#7 2022-12-16 09:26:45

Re: Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

#8 2022-12-16 09:44:45

Re: Jumping to Testing/Bookworm

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