apt sources.list syntax

[KEITH MASTIN]

Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote: On Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 08:15:29PM -0400, KEITH MASTIN wrote:
> >Hey all;
...
>> 404 Not Found

>packages.debian.org is NOT a package archive.  You can't use that as a
>package source.

Found out the hard way.

>If you want some parts of unstable, you have to add something like:
>deb http://debian.yorku.ca/debian/ unstable main

>Then since that will make it upgrade the whole system to unstable, you
>add something like:

>/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01default:
>APT::Default-Release "stable";

>You can then upgrade normally since it will prefer things from stable.

>If you want a package from unstable you can do:
>apt-get install packagename/unstable

>It will then tag that package to come from unstable and keep upgrading
>it from unstable.  You can also do:
>apt-get -t unstable install packagename

>That will install the package and all dependancies from unstable and tag
>them all as such to continue upgrading those from unstable.

Apparently, there's also /etc/apt/preferences file that can be edited to set priorities to achieve the same thing. The reference from the bible (sarge) pp. 98-99 is like so:

Explanation: Sarge
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 999

Explanation:  Etch
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 90

Explanation: Sid
Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 80

Package: *
Pin: release a=experimental
Pin-Priority: 10

...
In the example preferences file, packages belonging to the stable release get the highest priority. Testing, unstable and experimental are both less than 100, so assuming you have a package installed, you will not be prompted to upgrade it even if a newer version is available than what is stable. If you run apt-cache policy again, you can see the difference pinning makes:....

>Mixing and matching often doesn't work though, and may in fact already
>be imposible between etch and testing/unstable due to the major change
>in libc version, and if you upgrade libc on stable then you are very
>much not running stable anymore and would be better off moving to
>testing entirely.

My first run at Debian. I might very well have to backup/format/re-install due to previously unforeseen foobars at some time. And I thought Redhat was a learning cliff...

>Of course if all you want is java stuff you should be able to install
>sun's java packages directly from the debian archive.  You just have to
>add 'contrib non-free' after 'main' to your original deb line.  Java
>isn't "free" so it goes in "non-free" which you have to tell it you want
>to use.  Then you can install sun-java5-jre or sun-java5-jdk, etc.

My web searches didn't show these packages in the stable repositories. I wouldn't be suprised to learn that I missed something though...

Thanks

--
Len Sorensen
--

Kind regards,
Keith
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