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Re: version checkpointing



On Fri, Apr 11, 2003 at 09:40:39AM -0400, Gregory Seidman wrote:
> With some regularity, I want to try some package from unstable yet be able
> to undo all changes back to some previous state. I'd like to be able to
> checkpoint the system (which may require saving .deb files) and be able to
> return to the checkpoint. Ideally, a checkpoint would be "open" in that it
> would not be just a backup of the system (I could do that with a tape drive
> and dump), but actually add .debs to the checkpoint that had been removed
> or upgraded by subsequent apt-get runs.

You could always save the changes you made to a stable .deb using
dpkg-repack, then try out new stuff.  If you don't like it, install the
old one, which should jump back in exactly as it was.

In practice, I would say this would gain you very little, though, since
the serious problems you're likely to have caused by installing a newer
package are not likely to be due to wrecking your config, or broken
files in the package...

> Is this available? Is there a good workaround? Is anyone interested in
> implementing it if there is neither an implementation or workaround?

If you're that paranoid about new packages, I'd recommend trying them in
a chroot first.  http://people.debian.org/~walters/chroot.html explains
how.

-- 
Rob Weir <rweir@ertius.org>                              http://www.ertius.org/
GPG keys: 1024D/1E73B7CD, 4096R/3ABDE5EC     |      Do I look like I want a CC?
Words of the day:     bullion mania Serbian Project Monarch S Key DES Crypto AG

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