Re: apt-cache stable/testing

[David Fokkema <fokkema@nat.vu.nl>]

> > I have a server running stable, but occasionally I want to get a package
> > from testing that is not yet included in stable. So, I have both stable
> > and testing in my sources list and default-release stable in my apt.conf.
>
> I very much recommend building newer packages from source instead. If
> you're installing packages from testing these days, they'll likely
> depend on a newer libc6, and at that point you might as well be running
> testing.

That is what I do. But before that, I check if testing has the package I
want, or a newer version available. Basically, I never run apt-get -t
testing foo.

> > When I run apt-cache to search for a package, I want to know whether the
> > results are from stable or testing, or from a locally compiled and
> > installed package. Does someone know how to do this?
>
> Use 'apt-cache policy <package>'.

Er, it shows the current version, and a version candidate, which is
also taken from stable, so this only tells me about the version I have
installed. Wouldn't it be nice if apt-cache would accept the -t testing
argument?

Regards,
David