How often does Debian update its Stable repository?

Question

Ever since release day (early Feb 2011), I haven't got any updates (apt-get update && apt-get upgrade). I've tried another repository (ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian), and it's the same thing.

Here's the relevant line from my /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb ftp://ftp.is.co.za/debian stable main non-free contrib

Answer 1

Stable will only be updated when there's a point release. Don't expect these to be very often. In fact, don't expect these.

You should absolutely include security updates (unless you have some requirement like FIPS or something) as outlined at http://www.debian.org/security/.

If you want other regular updates add the stable-updates as detailed at http://wiki.debian.org/StableUpdates (stable-updates is formerly known as volatile, so if you see any references to that, this is the NewThing™).

If you want new software that isn't included in stable you should add backports as detailed at http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/.

Answer 2

That's because Stable, being stable, gets updated only extremely rarely -- roughly once every two months in the case of the previous release, and even then it's more "move security updates into the main tree and rebuild the images" than adding anything new. Adding new stuff is what testing and unstable are for.

Security updates for the Stable distribution are updated via

deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free

and for more volatile packages you should also add

deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free

to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Useful relevant information from Debian can be found at http://wiki.debian.org/StableUpdates

EDIT: The first point release update happened today, March 19th. I'm guessing they'll try to stick to a bimonthly schedule, with some elasticity to keep to the Debian standards of reliability and stability.