Hello! I have some questions regarding the differences between rolling release distros and the versions release distros. I would like to know: 1) if there's a Debian based distro that has something like launchpad to list ppas to add software, 2) if it's possible to add ppas in Debian itself and 3) if adding ppas it's rather useless in a rolling release distro (concerning to Debian, if it's useless in the stable version, or in the unstable version or both). Thanks in advance.
-
-
First off, ppa's are Ubuntu specific, they probably won't work in Debian.
A "rolling release" distro, such as Arch, has all its software released as the upstream releases them. This is from the ground up, so *everything* is upgraded on a regular basis, for good or bad.
Most distros have versions mainly as they at some point lock down what software, kernels, drivers, etc they are planning to use and work on patching them for bug fixes. Many provide updated Desktop environment updates, or others, in various extra repos.
Kubuntu has PPAs, which are extra repos that they use to provide KDE upgrades for users who want them. Some of these, after testing by us users
, can make it into the normal repos. This can make Kubuntu a "rolling KDE" release sort of thing, as the only bits upgraded as they are released are the KDE or Kubuntu specific ones.
http://www.debian.org/releases/
Debian doesn't use PPAs for extra repos, but there are unofficial repos one can manually add to it
https://wiki.debian.org/UnofficialRepositories -
Well, thanks a lot for the answers!Comment
-
Oh, wait! I have another question. If someone's running Debian 7.x, will it become 8.0 when released?Comment
-
Short answer: No.
AFAIK, Debian is a rolling release but they release a new version every 3-4 years. You might get some of the newer packages via backports. They generally give a years notice before ending support for a previous version.
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases#ChoosingComment
-
Debian released versions, such as the current Debian 7 "Wheezy", are not rolling, but they are maintained for a relatively long period of time. The testing branch is not truly rolling either -- or perhaps you could say it will roll until the release date of Debian 8, and then it will stop rolling and go under version maintenance. The only branch of debian that is rolling is unstable, "Sid", where new packages, and newly updated packages are introduced. There is an experimental branch -- perhaps you could characterize that as rolling but the problem there is, some days it rolls forward, and other days it rolls backward. As stated above, PPAs are ubuntu specific. *buntu and Debian are not binary compatible -- packages compiled for one will not in all likelihood work correctly on the other.Comment
-
-
Well, if all that tranquility disturbs you, you can alwaysOriginally posted by SteveRiley View Post
Code:# apt-get install -t experimental newfoo
Comment
Comment