Bug#507118: release-notes: Document use of backports.org packages during upgrade ( proposed text included )
Package: release-notes
Severity: normal
As backports.org is now semi official ( ie links from the packages web
interface ) I propose to document properly how to deal with the
backported packages when doing a etch2lenny upgrade.
This text should go in the userbackports section of the release note
and is a rewording of http://backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faq.
Backports.org is a semi-official repository provided by debian
developpers, which provides newer packages for the stable release,
based on a rebuild from the packages from the "testing" archive.
The backports.org repository contains packages from testing, but with
reduced version numbers, therefore the upgrade path from
etch-backports to lenny is saved. However, there are a few backports
only which are made from unstable (security updates and the following
exceptions: firefox, kernel, openoffice.org, xorg).
If you do not use one of these exceptions, you can safely upgrade to
lenny. If you use one of these exceptions, set the pin-priority (see
man apt_preferences) temporarily to 1001 for all packages from etch,
and you should be able to do a safe dist-upgrade too.
For example, the trac package in backports.org has version
0.11.1-2~bpo40+1
and in lenny
0.11.1-2.1
As 0.11.1-2~bpo40+1 < 0.11.1-2.1 (apt considers ~ lower), the
backports package will be replaced by the lenny package when you
upgrate to lenny.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
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