Re: Unsure of how Debian is updated
> One thing I can't quite work out though is how Debian handles updated
> packages. For example XFree86 3.3.3 is out now, will this eventually be
> integrated into the 2.0 release or are the packages in this release frozen
> except for bug fixes?
Hamm (Debian 2.0) is presently "stable" it will not change unless critical
bugs or security problems are discovered. Check the proposed-updates
subdirectory to find out what new changes to hamm are suggested.
What basically happens is that after a release, Debian marches forward to
the next version. The next version after a release is called unstable. Not
unstable because it's filled with bugs (that could possibly be true though!)
it's called unstable because it's changing frequently. Shortly before a
release the unstable version is "frozen" and that is the current state of the
"slink" version of Debian. (FWIW, XFree 3.3.3 is in slink.)
There's nothing stopping you from going into an unstable or frozen version
and manually downloading a series of *.deb packages and installing them into
your hamm version with dpkg. The problem is that you can't/shouldn't do that
with dselect or you'd upgrade the entire system to unstable/frozen (or would
have to put a *lot* of packages on "hold" status).
You, of course, have to be a bit cautious doing this to a production system
and ask/do a bit of research before doing so (ask about stability and
potential conficts/gotchas) but you can always back out and reinstall the
older versions if things go awry.
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