Help needed to understand versioning

[jojuma]

Yet A beginner's question to sort the versioning out:

Mobian is a versioned release, right?
So if I go to the image site, the image is currently named

"mobian-pinephone-phosh-12.0.img.gz"

This means I get mobian 12 (which is bookworm) with phosh as a GUI.
And this is also what the Installer-version provides.


But if I download a weekly build (installer or not), I currently get the trixie/sid version which is a rolling release.
But is this rolling release just within trixie? Or can I update this release forever? I mean was there a bookworm/sid before?
And if so, did bookworm/sid automatically become trixie/sid by updating or is that again kind of versioning.
Like there's a rolling release within one big versioned release...?


Thank you!

[Kevin Kofler]

It all depends on what release is configured in /etc/apt/sources.list. If it says sid or unstable, it will be rolling forever. If it says testing (not recommended), it will stay rolling on the latest testing release (which is not the same as unstable, but has only the packages already approved for the next stable release – it can take anywhere from a few days to years for something to make it from unstable to testing, depending on whether there are any known release-blocking regressions in the package in unstable). If it says trixie, it will follow the trixie branch as it becomes stable, oldstable and oldoldstable, and never move to a newer release until you change it explicitly – that is the recommended way to set up testing or stable releases. (It is obviously not recommended to do a new installation of oldstable or oldoldstable.)

[Pelecanus]

In addition to what @Kevin Kofler wrote there is also this Mobian Blog post about the release of Bookworm and how to switch over to Trixie. It will be similar when Trixie becomes the new stable.

Quote from the Blog post that explains why it isn't a good idea to follow testing as rolling release:

Important: Be aware that in the weeks following a Debian stable release there is a huge influx of updated packages and big transitions to new versions, clearing the backlog that has been building up during the freeze period. We would advise people to not immediately switch over to the new Trixie/testing distribution. Wait for a few weeks/months until things have calmed down and switch over then, unless you want to live through every breakage that might ensue post-release.

[jojuma]

Great, thank you for your detailed answers!