Neal Lippman wrote: > I need to upgrade just a single package (Fetchmail) on my file server > from stable to testing, because I have run into a bug on the version in > stable which I an hoping is fixed in the version in testing. I don't > necessarily want to upgrade the entire system to testing unless there is > a good reason to do so, just on the principle of not rocking the boat on > something that is working. You have a reasonable grip on things. > If I understand the apt howto correctly, what I need to do is add to > /etc/apt/apt.conf the line: > APT::Default-Release "stable" Pinning is generally not a good thing. It *will* pull in all dependencies which usually means all of the shared libraries. Since a large part of the system is really shared libraries that means that when you do this you have effectively upgraded to testing/unstable when doing that. Plus you are running a mixmatch of software which is unique to your individual system and untested in that combination by anyone else. > Does that seem correct? If not, what should I do instead? For a simple package like fetchmail you should backport it to your stable host. For fetchmail it is a little interesting because it build-depends upon a newer version of autoconf than is available in woody. Normally this following would work. As root: apt-get build-dep fetchmail As a normal user: fakeroot apt-get source -b fetchmail Now that you have built a deb install it. dpkg -i fetchmail_*.deb But for the current incarnation of fetchmail it has a build-depends on autoconf >= 2.54 which seems unfortunate since it is not really needed to build as an end user, just to develop as a developer. Do this. This worked fine for me. YMMV. I use 'sudo' and only those lines need or should be run as root. But I will forgive you if you do run the entire sequence as root. But try not to make that habit forming. sudo apt-get install devscripts sudo apt-get build-dep fetchmail fakeroot apt-get source fetchmail cd fetchmail-* emacs.nvi.vim debian/control # delete (>= 2.54) from autoconf build dep debuild -uc -us cd .. sudo dpkg -i fetchmail_*.deb If you feel good with the above steps then you should also edit the debian/changelog and make an entry for yourself showing that you changed the package. I would reduce the package version one level so that this hacked package is guarenteed to be replaced by the official one if the official one were a valid candidate. But if it is just for you own use then I don't think anyone would fault you for just doing the minimum to get the package running on your system. Bob
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