I'm going to pose my question here at the top in case it can be answered
without wading through all the details that follow:
Now that I have removed unstable form sources.list and preferences
(pinning), won't my packages from unstable eventually be upgraded from
stable as the stable versions become newer than the unstable packages
that I currently have installed? Or might I hit some dependency problems
along the way? Should I instead do the downgrades now by pinning stable
to priority 1001 (with I'm guessing is a one-time thing to do, and then
remove the pinning)?
Here is the background:
I upgraded to stretch back in November or so, and a couple of programs
that installed OK didn't actually run properly. I grabbed them from
unstable and all was good again.
Today I removed all references to unstable in sources.list, and the
pinning for unstable that I had in preferences.
Prior to removing unstable from sources.list and preferences, "apt-show
versions | grep unstable" showed, for example:
deluge:all/unstable 1.3.15-2 uptodate
"unstable" is gone from show-versions so I grep for "newer" instead. Now
it shows:
deluge:all 1.3.15-2 newer than version in archive
Here is the full list of "newer" files:
# apt-show-versions |grep newer
deluge:all 1.3.15-2 newer than version in archive
deluge-common:all 1.3.15-2 newer than version in archive
deluge-console:all 1.3.15-2 newer than version in archive
deluge-gtk:all 1.3.15-2 newer than version in archive
deluge-web:all 1.3.15-2 newer than version in archive
deluged:all 1.3.15-2 newer than version in archive
fontconfig-config:all 2.13.0-5 newer than version in archive
libbluray1:amd64 2:0.7.0-dmo1 newer than version in archive
libboost-chrono1.62.0:amd64 1.62.0+dfsg-7 newer than version in archive
libboost-python1.62.0:amd64 1.62.0+dfsg-7 newer than version in archive
libboost-random1.62.0:amd64 1.62.0+dfsg-7 newer than version in archive
libfontconfig1:amd64 2.13.0-5 newer than version in archive
libfontconfig1:i386 2.13.0-5 newer than version in archive
libnss3:amd64 2:3.38-1 newer than version in archive
libnss3:i386 2:3.38-1 newer than version in archive
libtorrent-rasterbar9:amd64 1.1.5-1+b1 newer than version in archive
python-attr:all 17.4.0-2 newer than version in archive
python-click:all 6.7-5 newer than version in archive
python-libtorrent:amd64 1.1.5-1+b1 newer than version in archive
python-serial:all 3.4-3 newer than version in archive
python-twisted-bin:amd64 18.4.0-2 newer than version in archive
python-twisted-core:all 18.4.0-2 newer than version in archive
python-zope.interface:amd64 4.3.2-1+b2 newer than version in archive
rtmpdump:amd64 2:201412272202-git-1 newer than version in archive
yasm:amd64 1.3.0-dmo2 newer than version in archive
Here is the list of downgrades if I pin stable to 1001:
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer
required:
fonts-stix libevent-2.1-6 libhunspell-1.6-0 libjsoncpp1 libvpx5
python-automat python-hyperlink
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
firefox
The following NEW packages will be installed:
python-twisted-web
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
deluge deluge-common deluge-console deluge-gtk deluge-web deluged
fontconfig-config libbluray1 libboost-chrono1.62.0 libboost-python1.62.0
libboost-random1.62.0 libfontconfig1
libfontconfig1:i386 libnss3 libnss3:i386 libtorrent-rasterbar9
python-attr python-click python-libtorrent python-serial
python-twisted-bin python-twisted-core python-zope.interface
rtmpdump yasm
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 25 downgraded, 1 to remove and 0 not
upgraded.
It shows the same 25 packages as the list of "newer" above, but I don't
like that it wants to remove firefox. I have version 58.0.1 installed,
and to be honest I can't figure out where this version came from. I do
have some backports installed but that's not where firefox came from:
# dpkg-query -W | grep '~bpo'
libcec3v4:amd64 3.1.0+dfsg1-4~bpo8+2
libcrossguid0v4:amd64 0.0+git200150803-2~bpo8+1
libmysqlclient18:i386 5.6.30-1~bpo8+1
libp8-platform2v4:amd64 2.0.1+dfsg1-1~bpo8+1
libx265-79:amd64 1.9-3~bpo8+1
remmina 1.2.0-rcgit.24-2~bpo9+1
remmina-common 1.2.0-rcgit.24-2~bpo9+1
remmina-plugin-rdp:amd64 1.2.0-rcgit.24-2~bpo9+1
remmina-plugin-vnc:amd64 1.2.0-rcgit.24-2~bpo9+1
My question is: If I just leave it be, won't the packages eventually be
upgraded from stable as the stable versions become newer than the
unstable packages that I currently have installed? Or might I hit some
dependency problems along the way? Should I instead do the downgrades
now by pinning stable to priority 1001 (with I'm guessing is a one-time
thing to do, and then remove the pinning)?