Re: how to do science with amd64 lenny

[Dimitris Lampridis <dlampridis@gmail.com>]

On Saturday 19 June 2010 05:27:28 Ross Boylan wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-06-18 at 14:57 +0200, Dimitris Lampridis wrote:
> > I was about to suggest something similar:
> > 
> > 1) Add the deb-src for debian testing in your sources.list
> > 2) apt-get update
> > 3) apt-get source mpich2
> > 4) apt-get build-dep mpich2
> > 5) cd mpich2-1.2.1.1 (or whatever the name of the created folder)
> > 6) dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us
> > 7) cd ..
> > 8) dpkg -i *.deb
> 
> I think there is a catch at step 4 (different from the one already
> mentioned).  apt-get build-dep foo operates on the install binary
> package foo.  I think if mpich2 is not installed it won't work, and if
> it is installed you will get the dependencies of that version (i.e.,
> stable) rather than the one you want to build (unstable).
> 
You don't need to have already installed the package you are running apt-get 
build-dep against. Why would you anyway? I don't see any reason for such a 
restriction.

Regarding what you say about the versions, I thought that that was the point 
of backporting: build a newer package against your older libraries.

And if that means that some dependency does not exist in your pool of 
available packages, then you have to backport that as well prior to 
backporting the final app (mpich2 in this case).

Having said that, it seems that the --target-release (or simply -t) of apt-get 
could do what you ask, although I have never tried it myself with build-dep.

Cheers,
Dimitris