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Post edited 2:49 pm – February 15, 2010 by Tom Truex

I installed Debian testing on one of my computers last week.  My main reason for doing so, was to set up an up to date version of a video editor I've been playing with, “kdenlive.”  Frankly video editing is one area in which Linux has, in my opinion, definately NOT been up to prime time.  The latest version of kdenlive seems to be a huge step forward.  In that past, I've found Linux video editors to be so lacking that I've resorted to using MS-Windows programs.  Horrible, I know.  But you have to do what you have to do.  So to speak.

Note there are three versions of Debian available from the source, http://debian.org, described by them as follows: 

STABLE:  The “stable” distribution contains the latest officially released distribution of Debian.  This is the production release of Debian, the one which we primarily recommend using.  The current “stable” distribution of Debian GNU/Linux is version 5.0.4, codenamed lenny. It was released on January 30th, 2010.

TESTING:  The “testing” distribution contains packages that haven't been accepted into a “stable” release yet, but they are in the queue for that. The main advantage of using this distribution is that it has more recent versions of software.  See the Debian FAQ for more information on what is “testing” and how it becomes “stable”.  The current “testing” distribution is squeeze.

UNSTABLE:  The “unstable” distribution is where active development of Debian occurs. Generally, this distribution is run by developers and those who like to live on the edge.  The “unstable” distribution is called sid.

I installed the “testing” version, which is working quite nicely.  I've run Debian at home for about a year, as well as some of it's derivatives, Ubuntu, Mint and Knoppix, so having less than what they call a rock solid installation is fine.  Actually, their definition of less than stable is probably a few orders of more stable than what you expect on other operationg systems.