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Re: Benefits (and risks) of using Sid



Quoting Nate Bargmann <n0nb AT n0nb DOT us>:
* Florian Kulzer <florian.kulzer+debian@icfo.es> [2008 Aug 09 07:29 -0500]:

[...]

- It would be nice to have "apt-cache policy"-equivalent information in
  the versions display of packages. Right now I find it difficult to
  figure out in which archive a given version can be found. (As a matter
  of fact, that is the only reason I still use apt-cache, aside from
  very simple searches for which apt-cache's dumber-but-faster search
  function is sufficient.)

Okay, here I'm out in left field as I don't know what apt-cache policy
would do.  I tend to avoid policy whenever I can.  ;-)

My statement was a bit unclear; I use the apt-cache policy command to see
which versions are available for a given package and in which archives they
are included. Aptitude tells me the former on its package information page,
but not the latter (unless I missed something).

Even if there is only one known version of a given package, I find it handy
to be able to distinguish the following cases:

- The package only exists in stable: time to check out the reasons for its
  removal and to look for alternatives

- The package has the same version in stable, testing and unstable: probably
  well tested and mature, but maybe unlikely to get new features

- The package only exists in unstable (and maybe testing): probably has
  interesting new features and bugs, it might be fun to play with it

Right now I use the "limit view" function with appropriate search terms to
get this kind of information; it would be nice if aptitude displayed the
archive(s) next to the version number automatically.

--
Regards,
          Florian


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