With some present goings on – it is being suggested to switch to Debian Linux “Backports” for testing purposes.
With the risk of exposing my own ignorance: What exactly is this?
What does it do?
Is this some way of using newer kernels but “backporting” or allowing older code to be used?
Sorry I am a total newbie to this regard and could use some better explanation as to what exactly that means and does, and maybe in plain English.
Meanwhile I can go search and learn about it on my own and possible figure it out quickly.
Thought it might be a good idea just to go an ask in parallel with the reading that I now need to go do.
Yep, google is “everybody’s friend” but when I have a question in a community I as well as performing basic searches prefer to also ask humans and engage in conversations and have discussions around a topic sharing what I find and what I try out.
Thanks.
Debian as a Linux distribution prioritizes stability over everything else. A released major-numbered version of Debian (e.g. 12 Bookworm) represent, essentially, snapping a line on a set of packages making up the distribution and saying “this is stable for the next 4 years”. The release of 12 Bookworm, for example, heralded the end of 10 Buster.
Debain releases a set of very controlled fixes for a stable release over the next 4 years for that release. Changes are limited to security issues and bug fixes that rise to a sufficient level of “we need to fix this broadly”.
Debian Backports are packages that are planned for the next stable version of Debian. In fact, they’re literally rebuilds of “Debian Next”. So Bookworm Backports is packages that are going to appear in Debian 13 Trixie rebuilt for Debian 12 Bookworm. You can, with some level of granularity, install a component of Debian 13 on Debian 12.
By activating the backports system and installing the kernel from backports, we’re essentially saying “run the stable kernel version intended for Debian 13 on Debian 12”.