That way, I get newer versions of postgres, zope, apache, whatever, but don't have to completely upgrade to woody or sid. Those lazier, more impatient, or less CPU-capable than I might want to look into Stephane Bortzmeyer's list of unofficial apt sources to see if anyone has already built something you're looking for.
As we go on discussing this mostly off topic subject something occurs to me.We are describing a workaround instead of a fix. In linux programs should not be able to break other programs (that's what windows is for). There is something wrong further on in the food chain that causes this fundemental flaw. The culprit we all know is shared libraries and maybe it's time to rethink that whole concept. In this day of giant hard drives and fast processors how much does saving a megabyte or two of disk space really matter. I know for sure I would prefer the old DOS (yes I said it!) way of doing things mainly ..
The application lives in it's own directory. The application is blissfully unaware of anything else in the system. Removing the directory removes the applicationIt's possible to have multiple versions of the same app installed at the same time
apt-cache search is replaced by ls /appsShared libraries may have been a good idea but somehow the implementation in both windows and linux got all weird. I just did a search for *.dll on my windows 2K system and it came back with 4,303 files. How much you want to bet half of them have a function to split strings into parts. If the goal of the DLLs was to encourage code reuse it failed, if it was to save disk space it also failed.
I say there should be a firewall between the apps and the OS and between the apps themselves. Installing an app should not break the OS or other apps.
:wq
Tim UckunDue Diligence Inc. http://www.diligence.com/ Americas Background Investigation Expert. If your company isn't doing background checks, maybe you haven't considered the risks of a bad hire.