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Running Debian Etch with unstable packages?

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I've been using Ubuntu for quite some time now and recently switched to debian, but I can't say that I'm an experienced user :P
I don't really like the idea of having an "unstable" system but I do like to have the newest software like Firefox etc. I've been trying to find some info on using multiple repositories and limiting the software that gets downloaded from say the unstable repository but I haven't really got anything apart from running a chroot, which I have tried and it's working quite nicely though I'm unable to run X applications for some reason... Anyway I'll just tell you want I want to do and you can tell me if this is even possible ;).

Currently I am running Debian Etch but I basically want to run Firefox 2.0, the NVidia 1.0.9625-2 drivers and Compiz on top of that (I believe Xorg 7.1 is required too?), as well as some other bleeding edge software.
I would like to have the testing and unstable repositories living in harmony side-by-side with only a few applications (as specified by me) to use the unstable repository.

I just found a "lead" on the backports project website saying "All backports are deactivated by default. You have to set a higher priority for each backport." I read the manpage for apt_preferences like a good little boy and from my understanding if I put the testing repository before the unstable in my sources.list then only the testing repository will be "active" unless I specify that I want XX application to be downloaded from the unstale repository. Would this be correct?

So to have the latest nvidia drivers and latest firefox I would add this to my preferences file?
Package: nvidia-glx
Pin: release release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 999

Package: firefox
Pin: release release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 999

I hope I posted in the right section.

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Etch with unstable packages.

Submitted by gromit on Mon, 2006-10-23 04:28.

You cannot have bleeding edge software and a stable system. The whole point of a stable system is to have software that was well tested, which means it is older. But anyway, firefox is not a basic system library and you cannot break too much by using the unstable version.

The order of repositories in sources.list is only important if you have two reositories with the same packages. Then the first one is used. If you mix testing and unstable you did the right thing. Just make sure you have both repositories in your sources.list. Then this should work.

If you get the message that some dependencies could not be resolved try installing firefox by typing: apt-get -t unstable firefox. Then dependencies are resolved from the unstable repository.

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Quote:You cannot have

Submitted by Xilon on Mon, 2006-10-23 05:09.

Quote:
You cannot have bleeding edge software and a stable system. The whole point of a stable system is to have software that was well tested, which means it is older. But anyway, firefox is not a basic system library and you cannot break too much by using the unstable version.
Yes well I used the term "stable" loosely, basically I just want an etch based system with only a few bleeding edge applications.

I read a little more of the man page and found an example which demonstrates pretty much exactly what I want to do. I currently have 3 repositories in my sources.list; etch, unstable and experimental. In my preferences file I have this:
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 800

Package: *
Pin: release a=experimental
Pin-Priority: 700

I tried installing vlc from the unstable repository and it worked nicely. Unfortunately firefox 2.0 isn't available for amd64 for some reason :( and there's some dependancy issue with nvidia-glx and the (non existant) nvidia-kernel.

Thanks for the confirmation

»

Etch with unstable packages

Submitted by gromit on Mon, 2006-10-23 07:45.

I do recommend to remove experimental. It is not worth it if you want a working system. I have just recently had troubles with nvidia-glx myself. Something seem sto be strange there, I don't know what.

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beware...

Submitted by pinniped on Mon, 2006-10-23 09:58.

On my current system (AMD64 platform), 'sid' is broken in so many ways. I'm not sure if the plan is to overhaul 'etch' at the moment when there is a release date set for the end of the year - if there is no such plan then you need to avoid mixing 'sid' and 'etch' at the moment because the chances of everything working is not so good. Most of my stuff works - but a few things don't and I get strange messages and can't figure out why. (cannot find GCC_4.2 needed by libstdc++.so)

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Not even Etch is as stabel as it used to be.

Submitted by MagnusBerg on Tue, 2006-10-24 07:30.

Then I moved from Gentoo to Debian Etch, as I remember it it was a year or so ago, Etch was stable as a rock. I was so impressed. But since then I had realiced that those package that should be bugfixed in Sid pass on to Etch. And, Xilon, the difference between Sid and Etch, then it comes to bleeding edge, is that the package in Etch should have been in Sid for ten days without any bugreports before they pass on to Edge.
If this was the case you will earn ten days by using Sid but take the risk to be victim to buggy applications. I'm ten days after but still a victim, but not so often I hope. ;-)

Have Sid users stopped to send in bugreports too? ;-) http://www.debianhelp.org/node/1259

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No problems yet

Submitted by Xilon on Thu, 2006-11-09 11:26.

I haven't had any problems yet with mixing etch and sid. I've only got a few applications from sid though, I wish I could install nvidia-glx from sid as that would help a lot, I find it a pain to install and update things manually now :P debian package managment has made me lazy :(

Anyway I hope the mess with nvidia gets sorted out and that there will be more amd64 support. All in all Debian has been great but I'm having problems with Firefox, nvidia and beryl.

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