On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 10:08AM -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: > In <20100130114447.GA2955@hexbrex.tri>, Sebastian wrote: > >On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 02:36PM -0500, Wayne <linuxtwo@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >Even if I remove the unstable and stable entries from sources.list and > >> >apt/preferences no other versions show up > >> > >> I would not put all 3 dists in sources.list. That could/would cause > >> quite some mess. testing/unstable is bad enough but you should be > >> careful using it. > > > >I thought if you set up apt-pinning in /etc/apt/preferences that > >should be possible without any major problems? > > You've got to remember a few things when running a mixed system: > > 1. Debian policy is to maintain the ABI for libraries that keep the same > SONAME, but sometimes packages headed for unstable/experimental break this, > usually unintentionally. If it is an important library, this can really mess > with your system stability (i.e. lack of crashes). > > 2. Downgrades are not supported, and can't really be. Once you've pulled in a > package from testing/unstable you can't go back, and as that package has new > version released, it may gradually need more dependencies from > testing/unstable. For some packages you can PURGE and then reinstall a lower Right. We're back on route... Thanks very much to you, Boyd and Wayne, your input got me on the right track. Boyd's answer was very informative for me, I wasn't aware that downgrading isn't really supported. I'll be much more careful from now on I suppose, thanks a mil, Boyd! Wayne's post tought me the use of 'apt-cache policy' and I gained some insights about apt-pinning. Thanks, Wayne! I ended up backing up my most important conf-files and home dirs and re-installing Lenny from netinst. Then I pulled in wicd and another few things from backports. At the end I added testing to the sources.list as I do my bookkeeping using ledger which isn't in backports and I didn't manage to compile from source either and set up apt-pinning to prefer stable, followed by the backports and with testing with very low pinning-priority at the end so that packages installed from backports don't get automatically upgraded to the testing-versions. Everything works like it did before (actually even better). The only thing left is my graphics-adapter (SIS 671/771) which isn't supported... - Blame SIS! Thanks again, everybody, for all your help! Sebastian -- A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -- Ben Franklin
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