On Fre, 2003-01-24 at 14:59, Adrian Bunk wrote:
Since some people seem to thing apt pinning can solve all problems
with outdated packages in stable I want to explain why this is wrong:
apt pinning is good if you are running testing but need a package (e.g.
a security update) from unstable.
There are people that use apt pinning to install packages from
unstable on a woody system. This is bad because nearly every
installation of a package from unstable pulls a new libc6 and it's
also possible that it pulls a new Perl and Python. Then some _very_
essential components of your system are upgraded to the potentially
more buggy versions in unstable.
apt-get tells you beforehand exactly what it's going to do.
apt-listchanges even shows you the changelogs so you have a very late
point of no return. I claim everybody who accidently upgraded perl
deserves it.
The only thing that could be better is perhaps that apt-get should
display what it's going to install in terms of ... NEW packages ...
perl/unstable or so.
I often recommend apt pinning if somebody asks about installing woody
but wanting newre packages. I'd expect that reading a man page and
thinking about what one is going to do is something that everybody
learns to do on a unixy system.