diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 22107050e4f..1a48cd5a073 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -3,7 +3,20 @@
 
 [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/NixOS/nixpkgs.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/NixOS/nixpkgs) [![Issue Stats](http://www.issuestats.com/github/nixos/nixpkgs/badge/pr)](http://www.issuestats.com/github/nixos/nixpkgs) [![Issue Stats](http://www.issuestats.com/github/nixos/nixpkgs/badge/issue)](http://www.issuestats.com/github/nixos/nixpkgs)
 
-Nixpkgs is a collection of packages for the [Nix](https://nixos.org/nix/) package manager. It is periodically build and tested by the [hydra](http://hydra.nixos.org/) build daemon as so-called channels. To get channel information via git, add [nixpkgs-channels](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels.git) as a remote `git remote add nixpkgs-channels https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels.git`. It is recommended to maintain custom changes on top of the `nixos-unstable` branch of `nixpkgs-channels`. For pull-requests, please rebase onto nixpkgs master.
+Nixpkgs is a collection of packages for the [Nix](https://nixos.org/nix/) package manager. It is periodically build and tested by the [hydra](http://hydra.nixos.org/) build daemon as so-called channels. To get channel information via git, add [nixpkgs-channels](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels.git) as a remote:
+
+```
+% git remote add channels git://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs-channels.git
+```
+
+For stability and maximum binary package support, it is recommended to maintain custom changes on top of one of the channels, e.g. `nixos-14.12` for the latest release and `nixos-unstable` for the latest successfully build master:
+
+```
+% git remote update channels
+% git rebase channels/nixos-14.12
+```
+
+For pull-requests, please rebase onto nixpkgs `master`.
 
 [NixOS](https://nixos.org/nixos/) linux distribution source code is located inside `nixos/` folder.