Debian testing is basically my distro of choice: if sid is the rolling release, and stable is the LTS version, testing is roughly equivalent to non-LTS Ubuntu: the packages have been tested so you don’t usually get breakage, but they aren’t stale.

The packages are somewhat tested, but "you are participating in the development of Debian when you are tracking testing or unstable" [1]. My feeling is Debian testing is a little less stable than non-LTS Ubuntu.

See, I'd like to use LXDE, and right now I use Lubuntu. I'm interested in switching to Debian, but then I read someone say Debian testing is "more stable than the name would suggest, as long as you follow a few reasonable best-practices" [2]. Then I look at these best practices [3] and I'm like, I don't really have time for all that...

But maybe that person is just overly cautious. So I look at Debian's page [1] for best practices and it wants me to use btrfs or LVM snapshots in case an update puts the system into an unrecoverable position. I... don't think I have time for that.

Maybe I can use Debian stable and just get software not available in Debian stable via... snap [4]. Ok, they also list Flatpak and docker, but this is getting frustrating... Is that really the best way to go about this? Because other than snap auto-updating on my machines behind my back, Lubuntu's been working great up to now.

So basically, is there a Ubuntu / Lubuntu that just doesn't have snap auto-updates? If anyone knows, I'd really appreciate it!

[1]: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#What_are_some_best_pr... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23038222 [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23044878 [4]: https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Snap

> My feeling is Debian testing is a little less stable than non-LTS Ubuntu.

At least a few years ago, Ubuntu's LTS releases were derived from Debian Testing, while Ubuntu's standard releases were derived from Debian Unstable.

Oh, didn't know that. That gives me a better sense of "how stable" each is. Thanks!

I’ve run Debian testing for like 10 years now, and I’ve never been hesitant to apt-get dist-upgrade.

Good to know. I felt that way about Ubuntu / Lubuntu for that time too, until now. This gives me some confidence about Debian to put some time into trying it out. Thanks!

You can try Fedora, switched from Ubuntu 16.04, never looked back

It's an LTS, upgrading every two years. No different than many other distros. If you want a more frequently-upgraded distro, consider OpenSuSE Leap (yearly upgrades) or Fedora (upgrades every 6 months).

Check out testing:

  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
  sed -i 's/buster/testing/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
  sudo apt dist-upgrade

Getting security updates from unstable (not required):

1. Pin unstable lower than testing.

2. Configure apt/debsecan as outlined here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=725934

I have used Debian for a while (2-3 years) and do not have that feeling.

sounds like you're describing Ubuntu 18.04 :)