Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Suitable distro for audio works: Debian Stable -> Unstable
From: Mark Constable (markc_AT_renta.net)
Date: Thu Dec 25 2003 - 13:41:19 EET
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 07:56 pm, tim hall wrote:
> On Thursday 25 December 2003 08:46, Erik Steffl wrote:
> > I am using unstable (pretty much all the time, except of short period
> > when I tried testing) and can't see any reason why bothering with mixing
> > various versions (stable, testing, unstable).
>
> There is no reason why most people would need to do this under normal
> circumstances, I agree. It is, however, possible - and there's no harm in
> finding out more about how apt works. :-) I'm running testing/unstable so I
> can keep up to date with sound applications without having to update
> everything else all the time. It makes sense to me, it doesn't have to make
> sense to anyone else because I wouldn't recommend it as a course of action.
Good advice. A full "unstable" system take quite a bit of
constant updating which would hurt on a 56k dialup connection
so a good compromise is to run mainly as a "testing" system
and only use "unstable" for the latest audio apps. I decided
to update my mothers "unstable" system last night, after about
3 months, and it took 248Mb of downloads to do so.
For anyone wondering how to... edit /etc/apt/apt.conf and add
APT::Default-Release "testing";
make sure you have testing AND unstable targetted in your
/etc/apt/sources.list, such as (pick a mirror nearer yourself)...
deb http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/non-US main contrib non-free
and do an apt-get update then apt-get -t unstable whatever.
I use these aliases in my .bashrc for conveniance...
alias e='nano -w -t -x -c -R '
alias edapt='e /etc/apt/sources.list'
alias apt-update='apt-get update && apt-get -u -d -y dist-upgrade && apt-get autoclean'
alias apt-install='apt-get install'
alias apt-remove='apt-get --purge remove'
If you have a 1 ghtz cpu+ and an adsl/cable connection and are
prepared for the extra work then I'd recommend Gentoo. I've been
using KDE 3.2-beta something for a couple of weeks now on a system
that is at least 50% "snappier" than Debian on the same hardware.
Right now, regardless of distro, the crossing over to a 2.6 kernel
is icky... I suspect 2.6.1 will have most of the low-latency patches
currently available for 2.4 and the in-kernel ALSA will hopefully
be updated so /dev/sequencer works in OSS mode (for sfxload/SBlive).
--markc
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Dec 25 2003 - 13:44:33 EET