Re: writing a release announcement
On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 02:39:22PM -0400, Andrew Pimlott wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 04:28:58PM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote:
> > Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> wrote:
> > > Some things from the woody release notes that we could mention include:
> > > - apt pinning
Yes Joey I agree with you, this pin thing is great.
> > I do not think this should be advertised that widely without a
> > big warning.
??? Why ???
I think warning should exist not for pinning but for running
testing/unstable package IN GENERAL.
Let me try to defend why pin is great from non-programmer's view point.
> I was going to reply along the same lines. I use pinning, and
> believe me I want it to work, but right now I continually find it
> frustrating.
I can say it has been working very nicely for me. No flame but I think
it really depends on what you want to achieve with it.
> > - I assume it won't work well for people running primarily stable
> > and tracking some packages from testing (or even unstable) - after a
> > short time (5 months) the dependency-chain is going to pull in
> > _lots_ of packages from the unstable-part, including first
> > libc/gcc*/, followed by debconf and X. The resulting mixture'd
> > probably be less stable than running testing.
If dependency try to pull something from unstable, if properly set, it
should stop.
> It doesn't even work that well, really.
I do not blame you. Art of setting pin values are not easy to
understood by normal person like me.
> Plus, there is minimal documentation. I am aware of
> apt_preferences(5) and the APT HOWTO, neither of which is sufficient
> to use pinning effectively.
If you had hard time with official document, following may help.
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference
This comes with 3 example files for /etc/apt/preferences
/doc/manuals/reference/examples/preferences.stable
/doc/manuals/reference/examples/preferences.testing
/doc/manuals/reference/examples/preferences.unstable
(If you find I am wrong in instruction, please elucidate me. I am
afraid my way may not be optimal. I never read the source and reached
these set by trial and error.)
I tend to pin some essential files to safer distribution while allowing
to access to other branches.
libc6. Always choose safest one as default.
Manually upgrade to known good ones.
gnome-* Latest.
Something like this. The choice of pin changes with distribution
status.
> > - pinning is not integrated in dselect
I think dselect accessed through apt-method honors pin scores and
provides the best score one as the choice. You just do not see all the
alternative versions with pin scores. It may not be best you hope for
but very functional and useful for me.
--
~\^o^/~~~ ~\^.^/~~~ ~\^*^/~~~ ~\^_^/~~~ ~\^+^/~~~ ~\^:^/~~~ ~\^v^/~~~ +++++
Osamu Aoki @ Cupertino CA USA
See "User's Guide": http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/users-guide/
See "Debian reference": http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/
"Debian reference" Project at: http://qref.sf.net
I welcome your constructive criticisms and corrections.
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