installing debian things and compiling your own stuff

[Aaron F Young <aaron@Logopolis.rdu90.com>]

hello all

i'm very new to debian

though i've been doing linux for a few years now

i'm making my way through all the documentation

but there is something i'm not seeing right now (meaning i am not sure where this is in the docs i'm reading so if you know, let me know)

but i want to be able to tell dselect/apt-get (which are just awesome by the way) that i have perl installed, but i want it to be the perl that i've compiled

i've read that you can put packages on hold, but i'm not entirely sure what this means, and what possible ramifications this will have on me later on

i'm using unstable packages for potato 2.2r3 and with that came perl 5.6.0

but while using the CPAN module to upgrade and install some needed packages

CPAN wanted to install a new perl for me 5.6.1

and so i went through with the install because i'm a Perl programmer and i want to keep my system up to date with the released versions

of course i missed the Dpkg and Debian modules in my new directories like an idiot and had to manually copy them over there


<perl rating=not_entirely_relevant>

after upgrading Perl and copying over the Debian packages, i kept getting a syntax error about assigning to a "goto" 

i fixed the error but i'm not sure if this would have happened if i would have found a debian 5.6.1 pkg so i am waiting until i get more information before being so bold as to submit a patch

</perl>

anyway my question is

In Debian.  What is the best way to tell dselect/apt-get that you have something installed and for it not to ever upgrade it, but tell other programs that it's installed so that you don't have to worry about dependancy issues.

Besides Perl, I'd like to compile my own VIm.

I know there is a way to get the source distributions, but i'm very fuzzy on that right now

thanks (in advance) for any advice

aaron