A few things that I haven't seen mentioned yet: If you decide to run stable, but want just some latest and gratest software you can normally download the latest Debianized source and compile you own pacakges against stable. There are also plenty of places on the net to get backported packages, but if you are security minded I would want to roll them myself, unless you really trust the UNOFFICIAL backport maintainer and the mirrors you are downloading from (there is another thread about this going on right now IIRC).
So you just install a stable system, keep up with the security updates, build your own local repository (plenty of ways to do this) and build the few packages that you need newer versions of. This is what I am doing (just got apt-proxy working and it's great). This gives you a known secure system, and all you have to keep an eye on is security advisories that affect the packages you have built yourself. I keep my servers on stable, and run my workstations on testing. Also personally I don't have anything that is automatically updated, I prefer to be notified of updates and then apply them myself, just to be safe (who in there right mind would have any automatic changes, no matter how trusted the source, on a mission critical server?). If you've built your own integrity checker for RPM's then this should be a piece of cake for you. Personally I think that the biggest problem people have with Debian is just naming related. If it were called Server-Stable Workstation-Testing Painfully Bleeding Edge-Unstable One of the biggest complaints that I hear about Debian is that stable is too outdated. Well of course it is, that is what makes so great, everything is extremely well tested and works. This takes time, how else would you get this level of stability. Our (while not a maintainer I do feel like part of the family) testing distrobution is as/more stable than many other distros normal releases. Please take a look at the debian policy manual for more info on how debian is structured, it will answer many questions (I think I need to reread the policy manual myself). http://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals#policy Well I actually have a few more opinions on this subject, but I have to run for now. Back in a while. Matt Wehland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Littlegrassy.com
