Need newer software that included with stable (that isn't at backports.org)

["Tim Hull" <thully@umich.edu>]

I'm currently trying out both Debian and Ubuntu on my MacBook to see which one I prefer.

Right now, I'm currently liking Debian better - the stability seems better, and it seems easier to customize

- but I need to run software that's newer than what's in etch (not for a lust for bleeding-edge, but simply for the reason

that my MacBook won't suspend or do proper power management in any kernel older than 2.6.22).  I also want to be

able to get updated packages such as the newest Firefox...er..Iceweasel (still hate that name, would prefer something

less silly).

 

I know the easy Debian solution is to run testing/unstable - it seems like most people do.  However, then you lose the advantage of

stability.  I actually tried testing and unstable, but found a critical bug pertaining to my video card - my system likes to reboot on suspend with the new Xorg drivers (yes, dutifully reported it to BTS).   For this reason, I figure I'll confine Lenny/Sid to a VM or chroot, and I've been looking into backports.  However, backports.org doesn't seem to have what I need (it only has 2.6.21 kernel, doesn't have the new acpi-support, not to mention some extra gstreamer plugins I wanted).   What would be the ideal solution for me?  Is there a reliable way to roll my own backports using apt to pull in dependencies?  Can I build from Sid sources on an as-needed basis?  I've come across a tool called "apt-build" which pulls down dependencies and builds from source - is it what I need? What should I put in my sources.list?

 

On a side note, I will say that the one area I think FOSS lags behind Windows and Mac is in updating individual system components.  I LIKE being able to update a few things without hackish solutions (i.e. build from source tarballs) or updating my whole system.  You can do it easily on Mac/Windows, but it's quite difficult and unreliable on nearly every distribution.  I think Debian really ought to look into making backports an official project and integrating it into the stable release as a way to get updates on an as-needed basis.   It may even be an interesting idea to do point releases of stable with some backports included.  Has this ever been discussed?  It seems a lot better than simply speeding up the release cycle...