Re: apt question

[stevencooper@isomedia.com]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 10:15:14AM -0500, Andrew Dixon decreed:
> >   i've installed debian on my comp for the first time
> >   and when i was installing it (base-config) from an ftp site
> >   (ftp.pl.debian.org) apt downloads very old packages ie. xfree-3.3.6
> >   gnome-1.0 and so on.... can someone tell me what i have to write to
> >   sources.list to make apt to download new packages ie. xfree86-4.1.0
> >   gnome-1.4 kde-2.1......
> 
> I assume your running stable.  If this is the case the simplest way to get all
> of the latest and greatest packages would be to upgrade to testing or unstable.
> To do this you change your sources.list from:
...
> 
> #apt-get update
> #apt-get dist-upgrade
> 
> or you could just install the new packages and then change your sources.list
> back to stable.  There are other cooler ways to install packages from testing
> even if your running stable but I don't know how to do it.  Anyone else have an
> idea?

I'm not an expert.  But I've had personal/painful experience with
blithely upgrading or mixing and matching stable, testing and
unstable.  The following suggestions are merely my opinion.

A couple of things to think about.

1) Assume you can't go back.  There are tricks that may help, but they
probably won't work.  Once you move up to a more aggressive package
set you are most likely stuck.

2) Testing and unstable have definite risks.  Assume you will suffer
broken package dependencies, etc.  For the most part you can overcome
these problems.  It takes work, knowledge and a little luck.

The best advice I've received is to live in stable, but configure
sources.list to get source packages from unstable.  Then any new
packages not in the stable distribution can be downloaded as source
and built into your .deb package.  This is much safer than playing
with unstable or testing binaries on a stable system.

I hope more experienced debian gurus double-check my advice for
factual errors.  However there's no doubt that pausing and pondering
before leaping up to testing or stable would be wise.

Cheers,
Steve Cooper