In Linux what is mean by unstable distribution?

Question

Is sidux a unstable ?

Answer 1

Unstable means it is still under development. The advantage of using one is getting cutting-edge technology. It is officially unreleased. Useful only for developing programs that are for future release also.

Answer 2

Stable and Unstable are relative terms.



For ex., if I'm hosting then I'd use something such as CentOS or Ubuntu LTS because they are stable and will not change (much) over the course of their life. However they also boarder on being stale. These are the machines who are restarted once a decade.



Fedora for ex., is also stable but updates are fast and breakage is frequent making it unsuitable, some may argue unstable, as a production server. However this is not always true. My home PC for ex., was restarted in Febuary and also hosts public services.



As a general rule unstable indicates that it's been tested and has known issues. Experimental & untested is where the fun lays and you'll restart often.

Answer 3

Sidux is a unstable version. Unstable is a distribution with the latest bleeding-edge software. It is not guaranteed to run at ALL. I want to say like Windows but Linux had Compiiz for five years before Windows had Aero -- and the latter requires a lot more hardware so it's not cutting edge.



Testing is the next in line. Fedora is testing. It's guaranteed to work USUALLY and not just crash when you look at it funny. Not all the kinks are worked out yet. Fabian Scherschel, one of the Linux Outlaws, maintains he's unstable like Fedora. Since Fedora is testing I think he's just testing us.



http://www.linuxoutlaws.com/podcast/155



Finally there is stable. Post release ubuntus or Slackware 13.1 (I use slackware-current which is unstable) are stable. They are guaranteed to just work.

Answer 4

Beta version of the software is called unstable distribution,

Answer 5

Unstable usually refers to in development or bleeding edge software. For example the latest stable Linux kernel is 2.6.34 however kernel 2.6.35 is currently under development

http://www.kernel.org/



For example on my Linux Mint 9 installation although it ships with kernel 2.6.32 I have upgraded to kernel 2.6.35 using the Ubuntu Maverick repository after satisfying myself it is suitably stable

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/maverick/alpha-2/



Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) is due to be released later this year

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickReleaseSchedule



Debian is a prime example and breaks down in to three categories (stable, testing and unstable)

http://www.debian.org/releases/



Fedora is considered to be a test bed for Red Hat as is OpenSUSE for SUSE Linux

http://fedoraproject.org/

http://www.redhat.com/

http://www.opensuse.org/en/

http://www.novell.com/linux/



To check what stage any Linux distro. has reached it is best to consult DISTROWATCH.COM

http://distrowatch.com/



The sidux distribution is a desktop-oriented operating system and live CD based on the unstable branch of Debian GNU/Linux. Besides full compatibility with its parent, the distribution also offers a custom kernel with support for a wide variety of modern hardware devices, KDE as the default desktop environment, a rolling release cycle, and compliance with Debian's Free Software guidelines.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=sidux





LUg.

Answer 6

An unstable is a distro that may still have problems. All distros have stable versions. some may have unstable versions. (Some may just not release until the new version is pretty stable.)

Answer 7

It's trying to tell you that linux is gay.