I ran into some trouble when I was trying to install the Debian packages for Mono. Turns out the stable packages for Sarge at
backports.org required a newer version of libc6 and libglib, which meant removing about 3/4 of the other packages on my system.
I need a stable Debian OS for certain applications, but I would also like to work with some more recent versions of software for some development projects. Is it possible to run the stable and testing versions of Debian on the same hard drive, but in different partitions? What would be the disadvantages of that system? Where can I find some more information about how to set that type of system up? (I'm currently dual-booting Debian with MS Windows XP.)