Re: /etc/apt/preferences problem - might cause problems when Sarge goes stable!
On Fri, Dec 17, 2004 at 03:21:47PM +0000, Ben Bettin wrote:
> I recently started using the /etc/apt/preferences file to get
> Firestarter from unstable into my testing install of Sarge. My file
> follows:
>
> ----------
> Package: *
> Pin: release a=testing
> Pin-Priority: 900
>
> Package: firestarter
> Pin: release a=unstable
> Pin-Priority: 1100
>
> Package: *
> Pin: release o=Debian
> Pin-Priority: -10
> ----------
Why mix o and a ?
> A few moments ago I updated my sources.list in preparation for Sarge
> going to stable. I changed all references to 'testing' to 'sarge'. I
> did this because I do NOT want to automatically upgrade to the new
> testing right away, I'll probably stick with Sarge for a few months
> after he goes stable. I had to leave the nerim entry as testing and
> unstable because he doesn't appear to support the release names. My
> sources.list follows:
>
> ----------
> deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian sarge main contrib non-free
> deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sarge/non-US main contrib non-free
> deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main contrib non-free
>
> deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main
>
> deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian sid main contrib non-free
> deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sid/non-US main contrib non-free
>
> deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main
> ----------
>
> After starting up aptitude I had to update my cache, but after that
> everything looked fine. So I edited my /etc/apt/preferences and
> changed 'testing' to 'sarge' and 'unstable' to 'sid'. When I started
> up aptitude and updated, things weren't right.
Where in man page say you can use release codename instead of archive
name.
| APT_PREFERENCES(5) APT_PREFERENCES(5)
|
|
| the Archive: line
| names the archive to which all the packages in the directory
| tree belong. For example, the line "Archive: stable" specifies
| that all of the packages in the directory tree below the parent
| of the Release file are in a stable archive. Specifying this
| value in the APT preferences file would require the line:
|
|
| Pin: release a=stable
|
| ....
|
| All of the Packages and Release files retrieved from locations listed
| in the sources.list(5) file are stored in the directory
| /var/lib/apt/lists, or in the file named by the variable
| Dir::State::Lists in the apt.conf file. For example, the file
| debian.lcs.mit.edu_debian_dists_unstable_contrib_binary-i386_Release
| contains the Release file retrieved from the site debian.lcs.mit.edu
| for binary-i386 architecture files from the contrib component of the
| unstable distribution.
>
> The conclusion I came to is that /etc/apt/preferences doesn't support
> the release specific names (woody, sarge, sid, etc) and only the
> generic names (stable, testing, and unstable). So I changed the
> entries in my preferences back to testing and unstable as listed
> above.
Good.
> It seems to me that the discrepency between /etc/apt/sources.list and
There you are pointing to directory name. These directory name has also
symlink. So both archive name and release code name works for
/etc/apt/sources.list.
But Release file looks like (read one form /var/lib/apt/lists/*):
Archive: testing
Component: contrib
Origin: Debian
Label: Debian
Architecture: i386
So we must use real Archive name for /etc/apt/preferences
> /etc/apt/preferences could cause some serious problems for people when
> Sarge goes stable, especially if they have mixed distros. I don't
> have any automated updating, so I'll just have to remember to read the
> news before updating every day...that way I can alter the two files
> correctly before I update. But for people that have scripts which
> automate the update process, they could get fubar'd. Any thoughts?
So this is not the problem of having external package source but the way
you set up preferences.
Osamu
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