Re: dselect handling stable AND unstable [was Re: forcing dselect to downgrade]
Rick Macdonald wrote: George Bonser wrote: On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Rick Macdonald wrote: This is something that I've always wondered about. Can you actually tell dselect about both stable and unstable at the same time? I've always been afraid to do that. Yes, you can do that. Just make sure you go in the order of most stable to least stable. In other words, define stable first then unstable. So what does it look like in dselect? Right now, with stable, contrib, non-free and non-US, I see, for example: --- available packages in section net --- --- available packages in section non-free/net --- --- available packages in section non-US/net --- --- available packages in section contrib/net --- Does it merge stable and unstable and just show the newest version of each package, or keep them separate so I can choose? When using *apt*, it will merge all the info from all the sources you specify in /etc/apt/sources.list. It will pick the latest versions and remove duplicates automatically (then pass the list to dselect for display), so I don't believe users can control this process. Its a good idea though, because I've often wanted to know whether the package I'm looking at in dselect's display is from stable, or unstable. -- Ed C.
Re: dselect handling stable AND unstable [was Re: forcing dselect to downgrade]
On Thu, Mar 04, 1999 at 08:01:43PM -0800, George Bonser wrote: On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Rick Macdonald wrote: This is something that I've always wondered about. Can you actually tell dselect about both stable and unstable at the same time? I've always been afraid to do that. Yes, you can do that. Just make sure you go in the order of most stable to least stable. In other words, define stable first then unstable. What do you mean by define them? In /etc/apt/sources.list? (assuming I use apt) -- Jim Foltz [EMAIL PROTECTED] ACORN techie http://www.acorn.net AOL/IM Jim Foltz
Re: dselect handling stable AND unstable [was Re: forcing dselect to downgrade]
George Bonser wrote: On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Rick Macdonald wrote: This is something that I've always wondered about. Can you actually tell dselect about both stable and unstable at the same time? I've always been afraid to do that. Yes, you can do that. Just make sure you go in the order of most stable to least stable. In other words, define stable first then unstable. So what does it look like in dselect? Right now, with stable, contrib, non-free and non-US, I see, for example: --- available packages in section net --- --- available packages in section non-free/net --- --- available packages in section non-US/net --- --- available packages in section contrib/net --- Does it merge stable and unstable and just show the newest version of each package, or keep them separate so I can choose? -- ...RickM...
Re: dselect handling stable AND unstable [was Re: forcing dselect to downgrade]
George Bonser wrote: On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Rick Macdonald wrote: Does it merge stable and unstable and just show the newest version of each package, Yes. or keep them separate so I can choose? No Hmmm, that doesn't seem much different than if you just define unstable, except for packages that are only in one or the other. The intersection of stable and unstable would just be the same as unstable anyway. Right? -- ...RickM...
Re: dselect handling stable AND unstable [was Re: forcing dselect to downgrade]
George Bonser wrote: On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Rick Macdonald wrote: Hmmm, that doesn't seem much different than if you just define unstable, except for packages that are only in one or the other. The intersection of stable and unstable would just be the same as unstable anyway. Right? For the most part, correct. One last clarification. You stressed that one should tell dselect (apt) about stable first, then unstable. Does this indicate that in fact dselect doesn't always present the _newest_ version, it presents the last occurrence found? -- ...RickM...
Re: dselect handling stable AND unstable [was Re: forcing dselect to downgrade]
Rick Macdonald wrote: Tommy wrote: When I upgraded the package lists of stable, unstable, contrib, and non-free dselect ... This is something that I've always wondered about. Can you actually tell dselect about both stable and unstable at the same time? I've always been afraid to do that. I'm doing that now and have been for awhile. :-) I had apt setup to get hamm+slink (when slink was unstable), and then went to slink+potato (slink is frozen and potato is unstable). The only advantage is getting access to the latest versions of software, but that advantage comes with a price. Because often unstable really *is* unstable, and you can end up after an upgrade with a badly broken system, or at least a very confused one. This can occur because at any one time, unstable could be completely broken by, for example, a new package that has been uploaded that turns out to have a bug which interferes with other packages. In addition, I went through a problem recently with GNOME. 2 weeks or so ago, an upgrade mysteriously broke GNOME. I know nothing about the inner workings of GNOME, so I ended up living with the problem until a few days ago when another upgrade mysteriously fixed the problem. I agree it is dangerous; you have to decide for yourself whether the access to the latest stuff is worth the trouble of having to deal with sometimes bizarre problems that will occasionally occur. -- Ed C.
