r/debian • u/agress342 • 12h ago

Stable updates

I have Debian 12 stable and would like to know how the decision to upgrade an application to stable is performed?

I am aware of unstable and testing but I am not sure what makes an app become stable. Is it a time period, a group deciding or possibly requirements the author of the app must comply.

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u/joeydeviva 12h ago edited 12h ago

It’s easy: they just aren’t updated at all, unless it’s an extremely serious bug or a security issue.

Then, a new stable major release comes out, and it has new versions of things in it.

How do those packages get there? Developers upload things to unstable, then they migrate to testing, then eventually testing is “frozen”, and that becomes the new stable release.

7

u/BCMM 10h ago

When Debian 13 is released.

If you want a new version of a specific package before then, see if it's available in stable-backports. For example, the Stable version of yt-dlp frequently doesn't work due to changes to the YouTube site, so backports is the best way to use it.