stretch-backports - how to enable automatically? [SOLVED]

[lefsha]

Hello all,

After many years with Arch, Gentoo and Co came to Debian for its stability and ZFS, which works just fine.
Very fast moved to SID, because of new kernel and drivers, but found issues with HPLIP, which is broken at its last version.
I can't spend time to repair or downgrade a single package, which seems to be not possible under Debian.

Frankly speaking Deb dependency system is most... special among all I know. It will quietly unintall packages, which
are in use and don't really depend on the one I uninstall by intention. The status - dependency has very special nature at Debian.
It is something, what developers decided to be so.

And above all that I faced new trouble. trying to stay with stable, which is stretch at the moment I have enabled stretch-backports.
But none of them are really working! I am not able to install anything from it by just entering:

Code: Select all

apt -t stretch-backports install nvidia-driver

the result is:

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nvidia-driver : Depends: xserver-xorg-video-nvidia (= 390.48-2~bpo9+3) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

If trying to:

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apt install nvidia-driver

I get old version to be installed.

If I set /etc/apt/preferences.d/01priority to:

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Package: *
Pin: release a=stretch-backports
Pin-Priority: 999

then behavior is even more ridiculous:

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apt -t stretch-backports install nvidia-driver

gives me:

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nvidia-driver : Depends: nvidia-driver-libs (= 375.82-1~deb9u1) but it is not going to be installed

and

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apt install nvidia-driver

gives:

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nvidia-driver : Depends: xserver-xorg-video-nvidia (= 390.48-2~bpo9+3) but it is not going to be installed

I read documentation about backports, but found nothing how to enable stretch-backports as any other repo to behave normal way.

Therefore my question is how to make it available for ALL packages in a plain and stupid way?
If I would not succeed in it, possibly I have to come back to Arch. I haven't expected it will be so much pain with Debian.
Every second packages (see postfix or exim) blame Debian for changing the standard way of working and config files, which
aren't suppose by developers. Previously I knew only Ubuntu is doing that crazy things like fixing up the working things,
but it seems the roots of such a behavior are in Debian.

Alternatively, I would gracefully accept any suggestion for a sane Distro, which I can use as server. So far Arch is my favorite,
but I was told many times it's not suitable for a server. Now I am not sure, that Debian is suitable for that task.

P.S. Example with nvidia-driver is just an example. No need to teach me how to install it. I wish all packages work the same way.

N.B. While discovered it's not possible to downgrade from SID to Stetch I am making a new installation with base system and
few utilities installed already. No mixed up things, no broken things etc. The problem has been discovered with linux-headers,
which I could not install, because of missing dependencies from stretch-backports. I succeeded in it by installing every single package
manually! nvidia-driver depends on xorg and became even bigger problem with broken things at the end.

Thank you!

[bw123]

If your device is supported by that driver, I think you should try the wiki.
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsD ... ckports.29

It is sort of complicated how apt works, and nvidia is a challenge for a lot of people. Just go slow and only install what you need, and what is compatible with your hardware.

I don;t think you need any pinning with backports, the pkg ver/naming should take care of that.

Aptitude pkg manager is very good at solving dependency issues.

[lefsha]

bw123, thanks for answering!

The post is NOT about Nvidia. The post is about Debian and backports.
Just added, that linux-headers had the same issue and were discovered first.

Nividia itself works just fine. Had no issue with that.

I am not about pinning or do something else with that repo.
Just did, what could find in internet also while reading Debian docu:

https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/#index2h2

That Documentation doesn't work! It is wrong. Therefore I am looking for a different answer.

[bw123]

Those instructions are working here, and pull in all required dependencies.

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# apt -s -t stretch-backports install ansible
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  python-cffi-backend python-crypto python-cryptography python-enum34
  python-httplib2 python-idna python-ipaddress python-jinja2 python-markupsafe
  python-netaddr python-paramiko python-pkg-resources python-pyasn1
  python-setuptools python-six python-yaml
Suggested packages:
<snip>

Maybe if you post all of the output, including the command and all output, someone else can spot an error for you. Also

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apt policy

might help.

It is really kind of strange to be new to the forum, and claim that documentation is in error, but it is possible. It might be more likely that you have something out of whack? Possibly either you have mixed distributions, or have pinning issues, etc.

People here will help you, I can't promise all of them are 'sane' though.

[debiman]

The post is NOT about Nvidia. The post is about Debian and backports.

OK.

After many years with Arch, Gentoo and Co came to Debian for its stability and ZFS, which works just fine.
Very fast moved to SID, because of new kernel and drivers, but found issues with HPLIP, which is broken at its last version.
I can't spend time to repair or downgrade a single package, which seems to be not possible under Debian.

it is strange that you came to debian for stability, but then moved away from that stability by using unstable sid repos.

Frankly speaking Deb dependency system is most... special among all I know. It will quietly unintall packages, which are in use and don't really depend on the one I uninstall by intention. The status - dependency has very special nature at Debian.
It is something, what developers decided to be so.

none of this is true.
i suspect you pressed Enter at some point, whithout reading the terminal output, i.e. you gave permission to uninstall something.

And above all that I faced new trouble. trying to stay with stable, which is stretch at the moment I have enabled stretch-backports.
But none of them are really working!

again, such a roundabout statement simply cannot be true.
or maybe it can be true on your computer, but not generally.

you should take some time to read documentation and get familiar with debian before messing with sid and/or backports.
it's possible you already franken'd your install.

and no, the documentation is not wrong. it might sometimes contain errors or be outdated, but it's not wrong as such. you should read & learn.

[lefsha]

If your device is supported by that driver, I think you should try the wiki.
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsD ... ckports.29

Installed from zero and tried above link for nvidia. The same result.

It seems apt has problem with dependencies which coming from backports.
Sad. Will try with Arch.

[lefsha]

It is really kind of strange to be new to the forum, and claim that documentation is in error, but it is possible.

Being new to the forum, doesn't mean being new to Linux. It doesn't mean either being new to Debian either. Right?
Not every one who using linux participate in any kind of forum.

I just mentioned what doesn't work in my case. And unfortunately I don't understand some logic in Debian. It's all my only private issue!
Sorry for being not smart enough.

[bw123]

You either want help solving the problem, or you want to whine for awhile, then give up and go on to another distro. Nobody wants to waste time here, or leave a thread unsolved.

If you found an issue with nvidia-driver and have trouble, let's solve it. If you have an issue with backports in general, that's another problem, let's solve that also. If you don't want to solve them, then go use arch.

I suggested using aptitude, did you try that? Did you post the info I asked for?

[Dai_trying]

I have been using backports on both Jessie and Stretch installations without issue here, it has always pulled in the appropriate dependent packages.Do you have other repositories added?

apt policy should tell you which are enabled but you probably know that already as you are more experienced.

Also does apt update give any errors that might give a hint?

[lefsha]

it is strange that you came to debian for stability, but then moved away from that stability by using unstable sid repos.

Not really. Some hardware requires a new drivers which only available with sid or backports.
To have the same system everywhere I switched my laptop to Debian. wifi has problem with stable packages. It does require new drivers to work properly.
Even now I have an issue with some sort of things. Stretch is using linux 4.9 but at the same time Debian decided to move to systemd. The version of
systemd in stretch requires kernel feautures, which are not available there! Why not upgrade kernel to meet systemd requirements or why not keep old systemd
if you wish to keep old kernel? Again dependencies in Debian is a mess! Actually besides FreeBSD and may be Gentoo all distros are mad regarding dependencies more or less.
Nobody can explain me why some web related packages depending on Apache, which I never ever install on my system. The only true dependency is library dependency and only those which prevent program from working=starting.

Also server needs some packages which are too old and unfortunately not compatible. Some developers decided to move to higher php version for example. I have to follow.
At the end backports were not invented by myself. There is a need for them. I just do agree, that plain sid is too dangerous. And not because it's unstable. It's just time delay till some one find an issue.

What I really need as a user is a separation between base system and user apps. The base system need to be stable and consistent. User packages have to be multiversion capable and not just single version like at Debian. Getting multiversion for Debian means enabling stretch and sid and resulting in a mess, because of different base: libc and co.
Something like FreeBSD style for Linux will do the best job.

I was thinking Debian is easier and less troublesome, than Arch. It is not. Arch is more straightforward.

none of this is true.
i suspect you pressed Enter at some point, whithout reading the terminal output, i.e. you gave permission to uninstall something.

Well, my personal feeling might differ from your personal feeling. All I have said is my IMHO. I am not sure you gain the rights to say for everyone what is true and what is not.
If everyone else would agree with you, there will be no needs for other distro. The reality is different.

again, such a roundabout statement simply cannot be true.
or maybe it can be true on your computer, but not generally.

I never said the opposite. I have installed a brand new base system alongside with actually running one (chroot) and do report of my problems.
If I am wrong tell me how to setup it to work properly. There is nothing valuable installed yet. Just pure base and deb utiuls. Adding backports I've got issue
with dependencies - tell me how correct the issue. Just a link is enough. Reading the manual didn't help me. Everything I want is enable backports by default.
Everything can be changed!

you should take some time to read documentation and get familiar with debian before messing with sid and/or backports.

Hmm... I'm not sure for how long you've been playing with linux, but my score is about 20+ years. Just in case you might be interested...

[Head_on_a_Stick]

came to Debian for [...] ZFS

So the GPL means nothing to you then? (Just curious)

I can't spend time to repair or downgrade a single package, which seems to be not possible under Debian.

Not true: you could add stable, testing or even experimental repsoitories to your sid system and pin older versions from there

Please read apt_preferences(5) before attempting this though — as you have already discovered, unskilled use of the pinning system can very easily b0rk a system

Frankly speaking Deb dependency system is most... special among all I know.

Yes, it is amongst the most powerful and capable of all the package management systems but this does make it more difficult to understand and use correctly — I too came from Arch and it took me a while to "up-skill" to Debian, in fact the process still continues

It will quietly unintall packages, which are in use and don't really depend on the one I uninstall by intention.

As debiman notes, this is clearly nonsense and you didn't pay attention to the terminal output before accepting APT's suggestion, that behavior will also break Arch, FWIW.

What you have experienced is the so-called "metapackage problem" which arises as a natural consequence of the conveniences offered by metapackages (which also exist in Arch btw).

Dealing with metapackages can be a tricky business but fortunately we have an entire thread devoted to just that subject:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=104157

I have enabled stretch-backports.
But none of them are really working!

In the case of the nvidia-driver package, there is an unsatisfiable dependency that hasn't made it to stretch-backports yet so that package is not currently installable.

It is worth noting here that the nvidia-driver package is not part of the official release and is only provided as a convenience so perhaps you are expecting too much here, a similar argument can be applied to backports: the devs focus on older hardware rather than shiny new crap (and I applaud this approach).

If I set /etc/apt/preferences.d/01priority to:

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Package: *
Pin: release a=stretch-backports
Pin-Priority: 999

then behavior is even more ridiculous

Yes, I agree, adding that preferences file is quite ridiculous

how to make it available for ALL packages in a plain and stupid way?

You don't because that is a very silly idea: as you have seen the dependency tree in backports may not be complete so favouring them by default would break your box on a boringly regular basis

The problem has been discovered with linux-headers

^ This is more vexing, the headers should be installable.

Remove that stupid preferences file, run `apt update` and then use the recommended method to install the backported headers:

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# apt install module-assistant
# m-a prepare

^ This presumes that you are already booted with the backported kernel.

[lefsha]

You either want help solving the problem, or you want to whine for awhile, then give up and go on to another distro. Nobody wants to waste time here, or leave a thread unsolved.

Well, yes I wish to solve the problem and I do appreciate your help! Plus I wish to understand how it works, not just press any key.

If you found an issue with nvidia-driver and have trouble, let's solve it.

As I said, I have found no issue with nvidia-driver. So far no issue. Being not able to install it because of missing dependency is not nvidia issue. Am I wrong here?
I can install it by installing every single packages manually! But then I do have issue with xorg, because it can't see those dependencies and push it's own dependencies.

The problem to be solved is - dependency issue! Question is simple&stupid - how?

If you have an issue with backports in general, that's another problem, let's solve that also. If you don't want to solve them, then go use arch.

After linux-headers nvidia-driver is the first package I wish to install. I have stopped to install the rest before solving that issue.

I suggested using aptitude, did you try that? Did you post the info I asked for?

You can assume the standard answer which is valid for any brand new install. But OK here we go:

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 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-proposed-updates/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=proposed-updates,n=stretch-proposed-updates,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-proposed-updates/contrib amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=proposed-updates,n=stretch-proposed-updates,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-proposed-updates/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=proposed-updates,n=stretch-proposed-updates,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 100 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-backports/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian Backports,a=stretch-backports,n=stretch-backports,l=Debian Backports,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 100 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-backports/contrib amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian Backports,a=stretch-backports,n=stretch-backports,l=Debian Backports,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 100 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-backports/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian Backports,a=stretch-backports,n=stretch-backports,l=Debian Backports,c=main,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates/non-free amd64 Packages
     release v=9,o=Debian,a=stable,n=stretch,l=Debian-Security,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates/contrib amd64 Packages
     release v=9,o=Debian,a=stable,n=stretch,l=Debian-Security,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates/main amd64 Packages
     release v=9,o=Debian,a=stable,n=stretch,l=Debian-Security,c=main,b=amd64
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=stable-updates,n=stretch-updates,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch/non-free amd64 Packages
     release v=9.4,o=Debian,a=stable,n=stretch,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch/contrib amd64 Packages
     release v=9.4,o=Debian,a=stable,n=stretch,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
     release v=9.4,o=Debian,a=stable,n=stretch,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
Pinned packages:

[lefsha]

I have been using backports on both Jessie and Stretch installations without issue here, it has always pulled in the appropriate dependent packages.Do you have other repositories added?
apt policy should tell you which are enabled but you probably know that already as you are more experienced.
Also does apt update give any errors that might give a hint?

Brand new install in chroot! Nothing besides base. Trying again. The same issue. Just added:

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deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main contrib non-free
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-backports main contrib non-free
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-proposed-updates main contrib non-free

[Head_on_a_Stick]

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 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-proposed-updates/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=proposed-updates,n=stretch-proposed-updates,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-proposed-updates/contrib amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=proposed-updates,n=stretch-proposed-updates,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org
 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-proposed-updates/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=proposed-updates,n=stretch-proposed-updates,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin deb.debian.org

Why have you added proposed-updates?

That is not recommended and will probably break things.

I seem to remember this nvidia backports issue cropping up before, @sunrat posted the command needed to install the dependency chain manually and I think `aptitude install` may have also worked.

[stevepusser]

Was it missing an updated nvidia-settings in the backports repo still? If so, it's been like that for months at least!

[lefsha]

So the GPL means nothing to you then? (Just curious)

Tell me of FS of the same quality like ZFS and I will follow. BTRFS is broken by design. My data are more valuable to me, than everything else.
Is it not the same for others? (Just curious)
Actually I started with FreeBSD, those guys say the same about freedom... They think GPL is bad and switched to clang. I leave the fight for others.
My opinion - it is stupid to be religious about practical things. What really matters is it works or it doesn't. Everything else is just blah-blah-blah.

Not true: you could add stable, testing or even experimental repsoitories to your sid system and pin older versions from there

Too much work. Too high risk to fail. Actually I was fine with sid only. Few user relevant packages were broken. System relevant things were fully OK.
I was not able to downgrade certain packages and therefore have to start dancing with repos. Frankly FBSD is quite reasonable to split system from apps.
It's just too old from design point of view, driver support and crazy of licenses.

Please read apt_preferences(5) before attempting this though — as you have already discovered, unskilled use of the pinning system can very easily b0rk a system

First I haven't installed ANY single package while pinning backports. I was trying this and that to succeed. No change has been made to the system. After discovering, that pinning doesn't help
I switched that off. So if base is broken by default, then yes it is broken, otherwise it is not. In other words it is broken as much as "debootstrap stretch /mnt/linux" can be broken.

Yes, it is amongst the most powerful and capable of all the package management systems but this does make it more difficult to understand and use correctly — I too came from Arch and it took me a while to "up-skill" to Debian, in fact the process still continues

Frankly the most powerful under Linux Umbrella is Gentoo. No one can compete with that. While doing a simple "apt install package" I am always missing:
1. Dependency tree, which I can get with emerge -t
2. Versions of packages going to be installed, which I can get with emerge -a
3. There is no way to list installing package if it is the only one before installation to confirm it or prevent it - emerge -a
In many cases I wish to see what will happen if doing apt install something and may be say yes or no. I am aware of apt -s.
4. I can't get why after removing some packages debian wish to install something as replacement. That way once I've got apache installed and starred at it while thinking what could led it to happen.

Yes, I am not an expert in Debian, but it makes me wonder more times, than I wish it to happen. There might be some ideas behind it, but _I am_ not capable to get it.
Arch is kind of restricted or binary Gentoo. It's a bit more cutting edge and has smaller user base, but my head is more compatible to it. Gentoo 10-15 years ago was perfect, after Daniel left it
it became a mess distro.

As debiman notes, this is clearly nonsense and you didn't pay attention to the terminal output before accepting APT's suggestion, that behavior will also break Arch, FWIW.

Nope. Debian is not aware of groups. Packages within one group are not in dependence relation to each other. They all installed manually, but at once. Deleting of any signle of them should not lead to uninstall others. Installing GNOME might bring up network-manager, but uninstall of GNOME should not kill the latter. There is no dependency between two! And there is none one who can disagree on it.

It is worth noting here that the nvidia-driver package is not part of the official release and is only provided as a convenience so perhaps you are expecting too much here, a similar argument can be applied to backports: the devs focus on older hardware rather than shiny new crap (and I applaud this approach).

I do not blame any one. Debian has to stay the way it thinks fine for developers. My only wish is to enable backports repo as any other repo available in the system.
It is disabled by default - fine. Tell me how to enable it if I wish to. End of discussion.

You don't because that is a very silly idea: as you have seen the dependency tree in backports may not be complete so favouring them by default would break your box on a boringly regular basis

Wait. The manual said, that backports are packages build with stable libs. Why it should be a problem? I have failed with only one.

The problem has been discovered with linux-headers

^ This is more vexing, the headers should be installable.

They are. I had to add -t stretch-backports to succeed. It was my fault if that special option is required. The same option doesn't work with nvidia-driver. And I worry if it might not work with other packages too.

Remove that stupid preferences file, run `apt update` and then use the recommended method to install the backported headers:

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# apt install module-assistant
# m-a prepare

^ This presumes that you are already booted with the backported kernel.

I can't boot. I am in chroot. There will be no boot, till everything works.

[lefsha]

Why have you added proposed-updates?

Not a question. Just masked it with #. No change.

[lefsha]

Trying again with logging the results here:

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apt -t stretch-backports install nvidia-driver

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 nvidia-driver : Depends: xserver-xorg-video-nvidia (= 390.48-2~bpo9+3) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

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apt -t stretch-backports install xserver-xorg-video-nvidia

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  glx-alternative-mesa glx-alternative-nvidia glx-diversions keyboard-configuration libdbus-1-3 libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm-common libdrm-intel1 libdrm-nouveau2 libdrm-radeon1 libdrm2 libedit2
  libegl-mesa0 libegl1 libegl1-mesa libepoxy0 libexpat1 libfontenc1 libfreetype6 libgbm1 libgl1 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libglvnd0 libglx-mesa0 libglx0 libice6
  libllvm5.0 libnvidia-glcore libpci3 libpciaccess0 libpixman-1-0 libpng16-16 libsensors4 libsm6 libwayland-client0 libwayland-server0 libx11-6 libx11-data libx11-xcb1 libxau6 libxaw7
  libxcb-dri2-0 libxcb-dri3-0 libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-sync1 libxcb-xfixes0 libxcb1 libxdamage1 libxdmcp6 libxext6 libxfixes3 libxfont2 libxkbfile1 libxmu6 libxpm4 libxshmfence1
  libxt6 libxxf86vm1 nvidia-alternative nvidia-installer-cleanup nvidia-legacy-check nvidia-support pciutils update-glx x11-common x11-xkb-utils xkb-data xserver-common xserver-xorg-core
Suggested packages:
  nvidia-driver lm-sensors xfonts-100dpi | xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable nvidia-kernel-dkms | nvidia-kernel-source
Recommended packages:
  dbus xfonts-base xauth libpam-systemd nvidia-driver nvidia-vdpau-driver nvidia-kernel-dkms | nvidia-kernel-390.48 nvidia-settings
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  glx-alternative-mesa glx-alternative-nvidia glx-diversions keyboard-configuration libdbus-1-3 libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm-common libdrm-intel1 libdrm-nouveau2 libdrm-radeon1 libdrm2 libedit2
  libegl-mesa0 libegl1 libegl1-mesa libepoxy0 libexpat1 libfontenc1 libfreetype6 libgbm1 libgl1 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libglvnd0 libglx-mesa0 libglx0 libice6
  libllvm5.0 libnvidia-glcore libpci3 libpciaccess0 libpixman-1-0 libpng16-16 libsensors4 libsm6 libwayland-client0 libwayland-server0 libx11-6 libx11-data libx11-xcb1 libxau6 libxaw7
  libxcb-dri2-0 libxcb-dri3-0 libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-sync1 libxcb-xfixes0 libxcb1 libxdamage1 libxdmcp6 libxext6 libxfixes3 libxfont2 libxkbfile1 libxmu6 libxpm4 libxshmfence1
  libxt6 libxxf86vm1 nvidia-alternative nvidia-installer-cleanup nvidia-legacy-check nvidia-support pciutils update-glx x11-common x11-xkb-utils xkb-data xserver-common xserver-xorg-core
  xserver-xorg-video-nvidia
0 upgraded, 73 newly installed, 0 to remove and 18 not upgraded.
Need to get 42.5 MB of archives.
After this operation, 280 MB of additional disk space will be used.

As you can see it works if installing one by one, but as dependency doesn't!

Issue reported:

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W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/rtl_nic/rtl8168h-2.fw for module r8169

It's just fine. We do:

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apt -t stretch-backports install firmware-realtek

Few more steps with -t stretch-backports

Ha! I guess, I've got it. I have to provide each time "-t stretch-backports" to keep things working!
I was thinking it is required only for packages from backports. Nope. It will screw up my system.
If any problems will come up again - I will report. The main question remains the same - how to
make "-t stretch-backports" by default without actually typing it.
Another fact nvidia-driver dependency is broken with "-t stretch-backports" enabled.

Not really happy, but will mark it as solved. Thanks to every one! Debian has survived that fight...

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Not true: you could add stable, testing or even experimental repsoitories to your sid system and pin older versions from there

Too much work. Too high risk to fail.

+1, I agree, Debian stable is *much* easier to manage

Actually I was fine with sid only

Yes, it is surprisingly usable for a development branch, using it for a server would be sheer foolishness though.

if base is broken by default, then yes it is broken, otherwise it is not. In other words it is broken as much as "debootstrap stretch /mnt/linux" can be broken.

But you are not using the Debian stable main repositories alone, you have added backports, most backports will be installable but sometimes there will be transitions in testing/unstable that will make certain packages temporarily uninstallable.

While doing a simple "apt install package" I am always missing:
1. Dependency tree, which I can get with emerge -t
2. Versions of packages going to be installed, which I can get with emerge -a
3. There is no way to list installing package if it is the only one before installation to confirm it or prevent it - emerge -a
In many cases I wish to see what will happen if doing apt install something and may be say yes or no. I am aware of apt -s.
4. I can't get why after removing some packages debian wish to install something as replacement. That way once I've got apache installed and starred at it while thinking what could led it to happen.

1. The dependency tree is only guaranteed to be complete for the stable release, no such assurances can be made for backports because of the dynamics of the packaging system in the development branches.
2. Package versions can be shown with APT, please consult the relevant man pages.
3. Why is `apt -s install` not good enough?
4. Please read that link about metapackages in my last post, it is rather annoying that I have answered this and yet you still bleat on...

Debian is not aware of groups

No, Debian doesn't have groups (although they can be simulated with tasksel) but I was actually referring to the fact that Arch Linux also offers metapackages:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/cr ... and_groups

My only wish is to enable backports repo as any other repo available in the system.

Pin the repository to 500, then it will match the stable repository pin value and APT will prefer the newest package version available.

This will break your box next time you `apt upgrade` though

The manual said, that backports are packages build with stable libs. Why it should be a problem? I have failed with only one.

The problem occurs because the complete dependency chain may not be available in backports at any given time, the packages and associated dependencies in the non-stable repositories are in a constant state of flux.

Why have you added proposed-updates?

Not a question. Just masked it with #. No change.

And how do you know if any depencies have already been pulled in from that repository and polluted your chain?

Also, did you `apt update` after removing the line?

Finally:

I have to provide each time "-t stretch-backports" to keep things working!

Did you actually try `aptitude` instead of `apt`, as suggested several times?

The superior dependency resolution algorithms of that program may have offered the desired solution.

[lefsha]

another broken dependency:

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apt -t stretch-backports install zfs-dkms zfs-initramfs

resulting in:

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/var/lib/dkms/zfs/0.7.9/build/configure: line 13069: dpkg-architecture: command not found

well it can be repaired by:

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apt-file search dpkg-architecture

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dpkg-dev: /usr/bin/dpkg-architecture

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apt -t stretch-backports install dpkg-dev