Hi all! I was wondering if anybody could explain pinning to me... I know several sources, yes, but just one more time... Please...?
OK, here's the problem: I've been tracking unstable on my workstation for a few months now, and I'm pretty happy with it, it's up-to-date now and I have the stuff I need. It's time to stabilize a bit (after kdm has been uploaded). So, from now on, I'd like to be tracking sarge, but certain packages should still be installed from unstable if I ask for it explicitly. Take for example python2.3. I've had that on hold for some time now, so what I have installed is 2.3.2.91-1. Unstable has 2.3.3-1, whereas sarge has 2.3.2-2. The idea is that if I go apt-get upgrade, I would get sarge's version, but if sarge's version is older than the one I currently have, it would just leave it and wait for a higher version to become available. I don't want to downgrade anything. Pinning is for this purpose, so I tried to create a preferences file. Initially, it started like this Package: * Pin: release a=unstable Pin-Priority: 302 Package: * Pin: release a=testing Pin-Priority: 550 After unholding python2.3, and go apt-get upgrade, it started to pull 2.3.3-1 from unstable. Hm. Back to reading. I've read http://www.argon.org/~roderick/apt-pinning.html and the APT HOWTO: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html#s-pin The latter says: | Priorities 0 to 100 denote packages that are not installed and that | have no available versions. Hm, this doesn't really make much sense to me in the context of apt-pinning: Why would one set the pin to <100? Just to say that it isn't installed...? And that it won't be installed even if I ask for it explicitly? That got me really confused. But then: | Priority 100 is the priority assigned to an installed package - for | the installed version of a package to be replaced by a different | version, the replacement must have a priority greater than 100. OK, so in spite of my confusion above, it seems like if I set the priority to below 100 for unstable, it will not replace allready installed version, because the priority for unstable will be less than the priority of allready installed packages. Sarge, OTOH will have priority of 550, so it will be installed. That's what I want. So, now my preferences look like: Package: * Pin: release a=unstable Pin-Priority: 99 Package: * Pin: release a=testing Pin-Priority: 550 apt-get upgrade, however, doesn't agree with my reasoning... It starts pulling python2.3 2.3.3-1 from unstable archives... I've also tried reordering the entries, run apt-get update, etc. They don't make any difference... One concern I get out if this as well, it sounds like if I keep a pin <100 for unstable, it is not going to be installed even if I ask for it? That's not what I set out to achieve... So, if anybody would care to explain this just another time, I would be happy! :-) A Very Happy New Year to everyone! Best, Kjetil -- Kjetil Kjernsmo Astrophysicist/IT Consultant/Skeptic/Ski-orienteer/Orienteer/Mountaineer [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage: http://www.kjetil.kjernsmo.net/ OpenPGP KeyID: 6A6A0BBC -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
