[PLUG] Using Debian testing packages in stable

[Paul Heinlein]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2010, Tim wrote:

>> I'd like to selectively upgrade some packages in Debian lenny 
>> (stable) to the versions currently in the testing release.
>>
>> Here's what I've done:
>>
>>    1. Made sure sources.list has deb and deb-src entries for both
>>       lenny and testing.
>>
>>    2. Added 'APT::Default-Release "5.0*";' to /etc/apt/apt.conf.
>>
>> Now I want to do "aptitude -t testing install pkg1 pkg2 pkgN".
>>
>> Is that the best practice for such things? I've read a bit about 
>> doing pinning in /etc/apt/preferences, but that didn't seem to 
>> provide the right package set when I ran apt-get in test (-s) mode.
>
> You might be better off using something like debian backports ( 
> http://www.backports.org/ ) for that.  When I do stuff like this, I 
> commonly just download and install the necessary .debs manually, but 
> they probably have swankier ways to handle dependencies.

Thanks for the link. I looked in lenny-backports for the packages I 
need, but they're still below the minimum version level I need (while 
Debian testing has the required version).

I'll definitely keep the backports option open for future reference!

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/