When you come across some Python code for something written 5 years ago and they used four contributed packages that the programmers have changed the API on three times since then, you want to set up a virtual environment that contains those specific versions so you can at least see how it worked at that time. A small part of this headache comes from Python itself mutating, but the bulk of the problem is the imported user-contributed packages that multiply the functionality of Python.

To be sure, it would be nice if those programmers were all dedicated to updating their code, but with hundreds of thousands of packages that could be imported written by volunteers, you can’t afford to expect all of them them to stop innovating or even to continue maintaining past projects for your benefit.

If you have the itch to fix something old so it works in the latest versions of everything, you have that option… but it is really hard to do that if you cannot see it working as it was designed to work when it was built.

Yes, this was an appropriate response. I hate people who wave guns around like they are toys.

Using sudo when it isn’t necessary, and the real cannon: sudo su… Adding sudo to your command lines indiscriminately causes files you create to be owned by root even though they are in your home directory, and then you end up using sudo to make changes to the files… and then the filesystem permissions cannot prevent you from successfully running an accidental “sudo rm -rf /” command.

Seriously… sudo is not a “habit” to develop in order to avoid dealing with filesystem permissions problems.

Noob question?

You do seem confused though… Debian is both a distribution and a packaging system… the Debian Stable distribution takes a very conservative approach to updating packages, while Debian Sid (unstable) is more up-to-date while being more likely to break. While individual packages may be more stable when fully-updated, other packages that depend on them generally lag and “break” as they need updating to be able to adapt to underlying changes.

But the whole reason debian-based distros exist is because some people think they can strike a better balance between newness and stability. But it turns out that there is no optimal balance that satifies everyone.

Mint is a fine distro… but if you don’t like it, that is fine for you too. The only objection I have to your objection is that you seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater… the debian packaging system is very robust and is not intrinsically unlikely to be updated.