Dual-Linux boot

[Edward Glowacki]

I was looking for stuff on AFS and Debian and while staring at the
"stable" and "unstable" labels attached to various packages, I
thought about doing a "stable" and an "unstable" install on my
laptop when it arrives.

Basically do a very minimum install, get all the hardware working,
but don't add much in the way of packages.  Call that the "stable"
version.  Clone it, then start installing stuff on the "unstable"
version.  Some stuff would could quickly be added to "stable" but
other stuff you may want to test out first.  For example, say you
want to try to play DVD's, you find a couple of different packages
and install them *all* to see which one you like best.  But in
installing one of the crappy DVD players, you updated some libraries
which are now incompatable with your web browser!  Even uninstalling
the bad DVD player won't fix it.

My theory here is that you will *always* have a known good system
to use.  You can always blow away "unstable" and restore it with
a copy of "stable", then restart your testing from there.  If you
wanted to do something major, like upgrade your kernel from 2.2 to
2.4 or do a full update of all your packages, you could install
all the updated packages required onto "unstable", test to make
sure everything works, then label that one "stable".  I guess it's
kind of like having a backup copy or emergency boot disk available,
except that it's always online and it's actually setup to the point
of being usable (if somewhat less full-featured than your "unstable"
version at times...).

Any thoughts on this, or am I just paranoid and smoking crack to
be even thinking about this?  (Or am I just bitter that I wish I had
had this available when my Windoze box crapped out on me?  ;) )

-- 
Edward Glowacki				glowack2@msu.edu
GLLUG Peon  				http://www.gllug.org
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
                -- Jules de Gaultier