Yes, Debian stable and testing are two very different things. Testing is essentially a slower rolling release that only takes packages that have been tested in Debian unstable, which is a very fast rolling release. Similar thing with RHEL, Fedora is a quasi-rolling distro that takes packages after testing in Fedora rawhide.
Yeah. Maybe Debian testing is fine. Couple of months delay is not a huge deal, even though i really want the latest packages myself. When a new version of plasma or gnome is released, im right there waiting for it immediately… :)
I know from experience its just not just a couple of months if we are talking Debian stable.
Here is what chat gpt is saying, even though the versions is already outdated:
Debian Stable lags behind Arch Linux by roughly 1–3 years on most core packages:
Breakdown by category:
Linux kernel~6–18 months behindRolling, latest~1 year
GCC / LLVM / Clang~1–2 major versions behindLatest stable1–2 years
Python / Node / Go1–3 versions behindLatest stable1–2 years
GNOME / KDE / XFCE One major release behindCurrent1–1.5 years
SystemdUsually current − 1Current6–12 months glibc / coreutilsOften within ~1 yearCurrent6–12 months
Security patchesBackported rapidlyUpstream latest0 delay on fixes
In practice:
Debian 12 (Bookworm, mid-2023) ships kernel 6.1, GCC 12, GNOME 43.
Arch (today) has kernel 6.11, GCC 14, GNOME 47.
So Debian Stable is about 2 years behind Arch overall, though security backports mean it’s not “outdated” for production.
Nobody gives a single salty fuck what chatgpt says.
Haha you are wrong about that one, 100% :)
Yes, Debian stable and testing are two very different things. Testing is essentially a slower rolling release that only takes packages that have been tested in Debian unstable, which is a very fast rolling release. Similar thing with RHEL, Fedora is a quasi-rolling distro that takes packages after testing in Fedora rawhide.
Yeah. Maybe Debian testing is fine. Couple of months delay is not a huge deal, even though i really want the latest packages myself. When a new version of plasma or gnome is released, im right there waiting for it immediately… :)