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Re: Debian SID or Wheezy/SID?



Csanyi Pal wrote:
> deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free
> deb     http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free
> 
> deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
> deb     http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
> 
> So it seems that this a mixed system, right? 

For Testing/Unstable (currently Wheezy/Sid) it does not matter.
Packages enter Sid and ten days later migrate to Testing (currently
Wheezy) unless blocked by a bug report.  For most packages the
difference is only a delay of a few days.  For others with bugs, or
while big transitions happening, they are held longer but eventually
will migrate through.

A system that has been upgraded will be upgraded to the latest
available version.  Therefore in the above you have a Sid system, not
a Wheezy system.  Packages in Sid will be newer than packages in
Wheezy.  Therefore when you install you will have packages from Sid.
Your system is then already a Sid system.

[Same thing for Stable to Testing (currently Squeeze to Wheezy).  If
you have a Squeeze system and add Wheezy lines to the sources.list
file and upgrade then you have a Wheezy system, not a Squeeze system.
The presence of Squeeze lines don't matter since those packages are
older than the ones in Wheezy.]

> What would happen if I would commented wheezy lines by using a # and
> after that I run 'aptitude update' and 'aptitude safe-upgrade'?

Nothing different would happen from what you have today.  You already
have Sid listed in your sources.list system.  If you have upgraded to
Sid packages then you already have a Sid system.  Removing the Wheezy
lines will do nothing different than you have today.  Or leaving them
in.  Other than taking up more memory and running slower because of
the need to process so much more data, leaving those Wheezy lines in
won't matter either.  I would take them out just to simplify things.

Right about now there are ten people jumping at the chance to correct
me and say, no, that isn't true, Squeeze has package XYZ that was
removed from Sid and Wheezy, and Wheezy has the pre-transition version
of package ABC that was removed from Sid.  They will say that they are
really different.  Yes, yes, yes to all.  They are different release
tracks, have their own repositories.  Some individual packages or
transitions of packages will have been added and removed between the
different repositories.  Each and every one of those are special cases
that would need to be discussed separately.  Which is too much to talk
about in a quick answer so I am going to ignore this for now.

> Can I mess up my system in this way?

Yes.  You can have a very broken system.  But not because of your
question.  You can have a very broken system because you needed to ask
your question.  I hate to say this but if you are asking this question
then you have not yet acquired the necessary skills to be successful
running Sid/Unstable.  Sid is often in a broken state and people using
it are expected to know how to deal with the problems.  Until you have
more experience it is better to run Stable, or at the least run
Testing, rather than Unstable.

Bob

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