Re: Advice regarding testing

[Justin Pryzby <justinpryzby@users.sourceforge.net>]

> >Read about apt pinning in apt_preferences(5) (really).  You can often
> >downgrade to testing, except that there are lots of library
> >transitions happening recently.  It might make sense to run testing,
> >but not update every package during such transitions.
> >
> But as Clive said, mixed version systems are harder to administer.
In my experience, it is not so hard.

> For 
> one, I tested it on an old machine and couldn't find out which version 
> of a package was installed: testing or unstable.
apt-cache policy foo

Note that the same version of a package can be in both testing and
sid, which can confuse the output (when lots of stuff is retrieved
from sid, it can be because it is the same as the one in testings).

> I also couldn't see clearly what an apt-get update && apt-get
> upgrade did:
s/upgrade/dist-upgrade/

> where the packages from testing updated with with testing and the
> ones from unstable with unstable, or did everything get updated from
> either testing or unstable?
apt-get -d dist-upgrade will tell you much.

-- 
Clear skies,
Justin