jago25_98
June 29th, 2005, 06:06 AM
From :
http://hamsterrepublic.com/james/linux/index.php
I found this howto regarding how to get debian to favour stable packages over the unstable, so you can use unstable packages yet not have to upgrade everything to unstable.
Comments for how you might adapt this to ubuntu?
June 16 2005
Mixed stable/unstable debian installation
I can't believe I waited so long to learn how to do this. Often I want to run the stable version of Debian, but I want access to one or two packages from the unstable version. How do i do it? Previously my only choices were to (A) upgrade the whole system (B) manually install the particular package, and manually install its dependencies (C) Hope that a backport existed for it.
But none of those three options is what I really want to do. I want to have stable installed, but still have the option of asking for an unstable package, and having it just work. There are two things I had to do. First; I had to put both stable and testing in my /etc/apt/sources.list file.
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main
This alone would cause my entire system to be upgraded to unstable, since the higher version numbers in unstable would always oveeride those from stable. What I needed to do next was to set stable to a higher priority. I did this by creating a /etc/apt/preferences file
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 500
Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 200
Because I have given a higher priority to stable packages, so given the choice, it will use he stable ones, but when I ask for a package that only exists in unstable, it will do the right thing
If my desire was to install an unstable package that also existed in stable, I would have to add an additional entry to my /etc/apt/preferences file, giving it a higher priority by name, but that iss not what I want to do. if you want to do that, I suggest reading man apt_preferences
Also, it is worth noting that running a mixed stable/unstable system is not always reliable. You may install packages that have mutually conflicting dependencies, so whenver a backport is available for the package you care about, you should always use that first.
http://hamsterrepublic.com/james/linux/index.php
I found this howto regarding how to get debian to favour stable packages over the unstable, so you can use unstable packages yet not have to upgrade everything to unstable.
Comments for how you might adapt this to ubuntu?
June 16 2005
Mixed stable/unstable debian installation
I can't believe I waited so long to learn how to do this. Often I want to run the stable version of Debian, but I want access to one or two packages from the unstable version. How do i do it? Previously my only choices were to (A) upgrade the whole system (B) manually install the particular package, and manually install its dependencies (C) Hope that a backport existed for it.
But none of those three options is what I really want to do. I want to have stable installed, but still have the option of asking for an unstable package, and having it just work. There are two things I had to do. First; I had to put both stable and testing in my /etc/apt/sources.list file.
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main
This alone would cause my entire system to be upgraded to unstable, since the higher version numbers in unstable would always oveeride those from stable. What I needed to do next was to set stable to a higher priority. I did this by creating a /etc/apt/preferences file
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 500
Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 200
Because I have given a higher priority to stable packages, so given the choice, it will use he stable ones, but when I ask for a package that only exists in unstable, it will do the right thing
If my desire was to install an unstable package that also existed in stable, I would have to add an additional entry to my /etc/apt/preferences file, giving it a higher priority by name, but that iss not what I want to do. if you want to do that, I suggest reading man apt_preferences
Also, it is worth noting that running a mixed stable/unstable system is not always reliable. You may install packages that have mutually conflicting dependencies, so whenver a backport is available for the package you care about, you should always use that first.