On 9/22/06, Roberto C. Sanchez <roberto@connexer.com> wrote:
1. You can use the equivs package to "fool" dpkg into thinking that a package is there when it is not. This is commonly used, for example, by people who want to install things like apache from upstream source, but then also install Debian packages which depend on apache. 2. You can "forwardport" mysql4 from Sarge to Etch. That is, instead of backporting from Etch to Sarge, as is normally done, you bring the old source package from Sarge to Etch and then build it on Etch. I have written a howto on customizing Debian packages, which also applies to simply recompiling for a different release: http://people.connexer.com/~roberto/howtos/debcustomize I think that option 2 is more correct. That way you know that you are using libraries available in Etch. Regards,
Thanks for all the replies I will be using the equivs solution since mysql 4 is going to have a short life on this box before getting upgraded to 5.x (about a month) . But the other solution is the best and worth considering for other stuff - I do however have one question about creating customized versions of packages already found in debian. Say I am going to role my own customized package then I do not want future debian packages to upgrade my home build one neither do i want to rename it since that might break other dependencies - do people in these cases use the Provides feature in the control file or is it possible to block package upgrades by specifying its maintainer or something similar in /etc/apt/preferences or must I use the Pin-Priority trick along with the full package version: Package: mysql-client Pin: version 4.0.23-1 Pin-Priority: 1001 -- Lars Roland