Re: smooth upgrades

[tom arnall <kloro2006@gmail.com>]

On Thursday 21 December 2006 11:36, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 09:20:09PM +0200, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 11:06:54AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
> > > On Thursday 21 December 2006 10:45, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 10:00:05AM -0800, tom arnall wrote:
> > > > > kloro@debian:~$ fnd apt_preferences
> > > > > /usr/share/man/es/man5/apt_preferences.5.gz
> > > > > /usr/share/man/fr/man5/apt_preferences.5.gz
> > > > > /usr/share/man/man5/apt_preferences.5.gz
> > > > > /usr/share/man/pt_BR/man5/apt_preferences.5.gz
> > > > > /usr/share/apt-listbugs/debian/apt_preferences.rb
> > > > >
> > > > > i.e., i don't have an apt_preferences.
> > > >
> > > > I don't think you should. man apt_preferences refers to the file
> > > > /etc/apt/preferences which AFAIK is used for pinning.
> > >
> > > what are the consequences if i don't have an apt.conf in /etc/apt? or
> > > don't have a 'APT::Default-Release <version>'  in it?
> >
> > AFAIK apt will try to upgrade your packages to the newest version
> > it knows about. That means, if you have 'stable' and 'testing' in your
> > sources than it would upgrade everything to testing (on a dist-upgrade).
> > If you add unstable than it upgrades to unstable.
>
> based on other parts of this thread and my own anecdotal information,
> I think that is correct.
>
> A

then what really is the role of apt.conf in terms of tracking the desired part 
of the repository?

tom