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Re: installing a mixed system (stable/testing/unstable) under separate directories



On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 11:19:35AM +0200, Alex Polite wrote:
> Package pinning is driving my crazy. Every now and then I just have to
> have something that is only available in testing or unstable. My
> favorite option is to download the source, compile it myself and
> install in /usr/local but every now and then it's a big thing like
> evolution which has a gazillion dependencies.
> 
> So I do apt-get -t unstable <package>
> 
> Almost without exemption this will lead to hairy dependency
> problems.

This is a very bad idea, as you've found out. It's much easier to find a
backport (see http://www.apt-get.org/, for instance) or produce one
yourself.

I wish pinning didn't exist.

> I want to install stable, testing and unstable under separate
> directories. All stable packs, configuration files etc goes under
> /stable, testing packs goes under /testing and so on.

You could set up chroots like this using debootstrap. (Just be sure to
use the unstable version; earlier versions aren't guaranteed to be able
to install testing or unstable.) You might have to do ssh X forwarding
or something to run X clients from inside the chroot, though.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                  [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]



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