Re: apt question

[Jim McCloskey <mcclosk@ling.ucsc.edu>]

|> What I am trying to do is install the latest version of the sawfish 
|> window manager.  It resides in the unstable section.  The problem is 
|> that I want to install only what is required from the unstable base.  I 
|> tried pressing "R" and "D" so that only the packages I selected would be 
|> installed, but I got a ton of dependencies.
|>
|> what is the best way for me to do this?

I believe that the way that gives the best combination of safety and
convenience is to use:

  apt-get --compile source sawfish

This will download the source-files and compile the package. I'm
afraid I don't know if it handles dependencies, but if you look at

   http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/sawfish.html

you'll get a complete list of packages that sawfish depends on and
suggests. 

For this to work, you need to have in /etc/apt/sources.list (along
with your usual sources for the binary packages) a line like the
following:

deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main 

(assuming that the package you want is in the main section of the
unstable distribution and that http.us.debian.org is the mirror
closest to you)

Then `apt-get update' and `apt-get --compile source sawfish'.

The advantage of this is that the program will be compiled against the
libraries that currently exist on your system. If you try to install
the binary package from unstable, there is a good chance that it will
have been compiled against libraries that are newer than (and
incompatible with) the libraries that exist on your system.

Hope this helps,

Jim