Re: How to track *part* of unstable?

[Mark Phillips <mark@ist.flinders.edu.au>]

> Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to do this easily - there doesn't seem
> to be any way to tell apt, "Keep the system up to date with potato, except
> for packages foo, bar, and baz, which should be woody."  The closest I've
> come is:
> 
> - Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point at potato
> - apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade
> - Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point at woody
> - apt-get update ; apt-get install foo bar baz

The only problem with this is that every time you change the
sources.list file and run apt-get update, it takes ages downloading
package files that you usually have already downloaded before, but
were discarded through an earlier sources.list change.  This is a
waste of time and bandwidth.  My solution is to do this:

Assuming currently you are pointing at potato and uptodate...

cp -a /var/state/apt/lists /var/state/apt/lists.potato
edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point at woody
apt-get update
apt-get install whatever packages you want
mv /var/state/apt/lists /var/state/apt/lists.woody
cp -a /var/state/apt/lists.potato /var/state/apt/lists
edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point at potato
apt-get update (just to be on the safe side)

Then you will be safely back pointing to potato again, having
installed a few woody packages.  By keeping a copy of the
/var/state/apt/lists directory for potato, you won't need to download
it again.

Next time you do the above, you could replace the first step by

mv /var/state/apt/lists /var/state/apt/lists.potato
cp -a /var/state/apt/lists.woody /var/state/apt/lists

but this is of lesser value, because woody is constantly changing so
you will probably have to download the package files anyway.

Hope this helps,

Mark.

P.S. I like the sound of the new apt-get ability to mix and match!!!
Does anyone have an idea of when this will be stable enough for
general use?

-- 
_/~~~~~~~~\___/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
____/~~\_____/~~\__/~~\__________________________Mark_Phillips____________
____/~~\_____/~~\________________________________mark@ist.flinders.edu.au_
____/~~\HE___/~~\__/~~\APTAIN_____________________________________________
____/~~\______/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
        "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"