Re: Building backports and local repositories

[David <dbree@duo-county.com>]

On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 10:45:45AM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> Quoting David <dbree@duo-county.com>:

> >I'm wanting to install a few backports and want to verify that I'm not
> >about to hose any of my system.  I'm running Sarge...
> >
> 
> [SNIP lost of stuff]
> 
> >Now the question:  Does the above not create a set of valid debs that I
> >can safely install?  More generally, is all that's required to
> >produce a stock backport just to download the source, and the diff file
> >and compile - doing whatever is required to eliminate all compile
> >errors?
> >
> Glad you asked.  I have written a HOWTO on customizing Debian packages
> (backporting is essentially just a customization) here:
> 
> http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto/howtos/debcustomize

I'll check that one out - I looked at your repository page, but missed
this one...

> >One further question regarding apt.  I have created a local APT
> >repository which appears will be ready to install my new packages.
> >However, the documentation seemed to imply that a line in
> >/etc/apt/preferences such as:
> >
> >   Pin: origin ""
> >
> >would refer to local files.  However, my result seemed to be similar to
> >that of many others from searching the archives.  The only way I could
> >get my local repository to be preferred was to put a line "Origin:
> >Local" into my Release file and then have a line "Pin: release o=Local"
> >in my preferences file.  Not a problem, but it would have been neater
> >IMO, if I could have used the original plan.
> >
> I am not sure what the layout of your repository is, but you may want to 
> check
> out the HOWTO I wrote on to create your own local repository:
> 
> http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto/howtos/debrepository
> 
> It is an "automatic" repository, which means that pinning should work 
> as it does
> for the main Debian archive and other repositories which use the automatic
> layout (as opposed to the trivial layout).

Yes, I studied that page.  I tried with this structure:
   ~/packages/dists/sarge/main/binary-i386/

and with it in the top level.  Currently, it's set up with this latter
structure.  With the "Origin" in the Release file, apt-cache now shows
it as the Candidate with the desired priority, and aptitude -s shows it
ready to install from my local repository.  It was just a mystery as to
why it wouldn't work the way the documentation implied.

Thanks for the response. I will play around with it a bit more to see
what I can come up with.