Re: Installing a package from "testing" or "unstable". How?

[Chris Lale <chrislale@untrammelled.co.uk>]

Kevin Dean wrote:

> In order to do this, you must have the testing or unstable repository 
> enabled and un-commented in /etc/apt/sources/list
>
> For instance, (please not, this will be different based on your 
> mirrors and sources, but the concept is the same.
>
> as root, nano /etc/apt/sources.list
>
> You'll see lines that look like
>
> deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free
>
> Comment this out  (put a # in front of it) and add
>
> deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
>
> The save the file and exit.
>
> next, do apt-get update
>
> The apt-get install <package name> and it should pull from the 
> unstable repository.

I don't think that this is the recommended way. Are you not likely to 
upgrade other packages that you might not want to?

The Apt HOWTO 
http://www.us.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html#s-default-version 
explains how to do  what you want using pinning. You add the unstable 
deb line to /etc/apt/sources.list without commenting out the stable one.

There is an example at http://backports.org/instructions.html. It shows 
how to set up pinning for the backports repository, but you can easily 
see how to change the deb line and substitute "unstable" for 
"sarge-backports".

Hth
Chris.