Re: Proper use of pinning?

[Derek Broughton <news@pointerstop.ca>]

Clinton V. Weiss wrote:

> I'm setting up a machine which I would like to keep mostly stable
> (sarge) packages. However, some packages such as Firefox or GAIM, I'd
> like to run the newer versions. Reading up on the man pages and the
> Debian manual has gotten me this far:
...
 > /etc/apt/preferences
> -----------------
> | Package: *
> | Pin: release a=stable
> | Pin-Priority: 700
> |
> | Package: *
> | Pin: release a=testing
> | Pin-Priority: 650
> |
> | Package: *
> | Pin: release a=unstable
> | Pin-Priority: 600
> -----------------
> 
> /etc/apt/apt.conf
> -----------------
> | APT::Default-Release "stable";
> -----------------

I'm no expert, but I think you just told it to set the default priority
for "stable" to 500.  Try removing the default-release setting from
apt.conf and using aptitude with and without the -t option (I'm not sure
whether this option works in apt-get).

You could also try it the other way - no pinning, but just specifying the
default in apt-conf.
-- 
derek