Why is Sarge being referred to as "unstable"?

[pcalvert]

I used apt-cdrom to add my DVDs to sources.list. After I did that, I opened sources.list to see what got added. Here is what apt-cdrom added:

deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r2 _Sarge_ - Official i386 Binary-1 (20060419)]/ unstable contrib main
deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r2 _Sarge_ - Official i386 Binary-2 (20060419)]/ unstable contrib main

Unstable??? What is that doing there? BTW, the documentation on the CD/DVD for Debian 3.1 r2 also mentions that this is Debian unstable. Which, of course, is not correct.

Phil

[zwerg]

Heh! The Sarge CD's in my sources.list are all r0a, dated 2005, and they are "unstable," too. Anybody??

[ajdlinux]

The reason for that is:
1) The CDs AFAIK all read unstable, because if you look in the dists directory on the CD you will see that stable, testing and unstable are all symlinked to sarge.
2) The docs error is known. Just accept it, it won't change anything.

[pcalvert]

The reason for that is:
1) The CDs AFAIK all read unstable, because if you look in the dists directory on the CD you will see that stable, testing and unstable are all symlinked to sarge.

Yes, I was aware of the symbolic links. That doesn't really explain it, though. I doubt that there really is a good explanation, other than sloppiness.

2) The docs error is known. Just accept it, it won't change anything.

It may not change anything, but it could confuse new users who may not be able to immediately recognize that it is a mistake.

As for the entries for my DVDs, would there be a problem if I corrected them by changing "unstable" to "stable" or "sarge"? And wouldn't having "unstable" there cause a problem with apt? For example, suppose I have this line in apt.conf:

APT::Default-Release "stable";

Wouldn't apt ignore or refuse to use the packages on the CDs/DVDs because the info in sources.list indicates that the packages are for Debian unstable? BTW, if this seems like a "stupid" question, keep in mind that I installed Debian for the first time only a few days ago.

Phil

[ajdlinux]

No, it wouldn't, as Default != what it uses, Default == preferred.