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Howto: Set up and Maintain a Mixed Testing/Unstable System

Share your HowTo, Documentation, Tips and Tricks. Not for support questions!.
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diego1116
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#21 Post by diego1116 »

That's strange indeed, the order here is different:

Code: Select all

diego1116@enterprise:~$ apt-cache policy dpkg
dpkg:
  Installed: 1.14.4
  Candidate: 1.14.4
  Version table:
 *** 1.14.4 0
        990 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main Packages
        300 http://http.us.debian.org unstable/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

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Pobega
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#22 Post by Pobega »

diego1116 wrote:That's strange indeed, the order here is different:

Code: Select all

diego1116@enterprise:~$ apt-cache policy dpkg
dpkg:
  Installed: 1.14.4
  Candidate: 1.14.4
  Version table:
 *** 1.14.4 0
        990 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main Packages
        300 http://http.us.debian.org unstable/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
So I guess that means there's definitely something weird going on with my setup.

Edit: I fixed it. Having "unstable" first in my sources.list is what messed it up, I put it under testing and it works completely fine now. What a weird problem.
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rickh
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#23 Post by rickh »

I'm not entirely convinced that would have fixed it. Before that. did you not say that an upgrade command would actually try to upgrade dpkg from unstable? Has that stopped?
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Pobega
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#24 Post by Pobega »

rickh wrote:I'm not entirely convinced that would have fixed it. Before that. did you not say that an upgrade command would actually try to upgrade dpkg from unstable? Has that stopped?
I removed unstable and upgraded it that way, so I wouldn't know. But switching my sources.list back to unstable on top doesn't change anything...It just looks like the problem fixed itself when I changed unstable from "300" to "800" in /etc/apt/preferences. So I guess that's what fixed it.
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rickh
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#25 Post by rickh »

I have been watching my Lenny/Sid (mostly Lenny) system very carefully to see how it handles packages I have installed from Sid; (apt.conf: default-release=testing, no apt-preferences file). I have become convinced that apt-preferences is not necessary unless you are really concerned that a package upgraded from Sid never receive a subsequent update from there. (And, as detailed in the OP, I think that is a bad policy.)

The key seems to be the fact that once a newer or equal version than the one you have installed gets to Testing (default-release) aptitude apparently recognizes that that package's source is now, once again, the default-release.

An example is the recent move to Testing of libc6. I already had the Unstable version, and it had been upgraded several times. When libc6 moved to Testing, apt-show-version changed thusly:
Before:
libc6/unstable uptodate 2.5-9
After:
libc6/testing uptodate 2.5-9
I believe, but have not yet been able to verify, that even if Unstable had contained a newer version at that point, it would not have upgraded from Unstable.
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swirling_vortex
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#26 Post by swirling_vortex »

I still find commenting and uncommenting out unstable for my Lenny system much easier and a 100% sure way that I don't get any rogue Sid upgrades.

reidar
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#27 Post by reidar »

Excellent howto! I followed it after first having done an upgrade from etch/stable to lenny/testing, and everything appears to work fine. I would love to hear more tips from those who are more experienced in running a mixed testing/unstable system!

-r

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rickh
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#28 Post by rickh »

I have continued to watch the package handling from my mixed system with no /etc/apt/apt.preferences file installed, and have become convinced that the issues are being handled properly. As a result, I have again edited the OP with this insertion:
There is quite a bit of discussion in the comments below about the need for an /etc/apt/preferences file, and the "pinning" instructions it contains. I have been watching my own system very closely to see how a package upgrade is handled once you have chosen to upgrade it from Unstable. My considered opinion, at this point, is that /etc/apt/preferences is not necessary, unless you feel that you need absolute control over the source of future upgrades to the package in question.

My observation is that, without pinning, a package installed from Unstable will continue to get upgrades from unstable until it is migrated from Unstable to Testing. Once that happens, aptitude will change it's source for that package back to the default release (Testing). IMO, that's the way you should allow it to work.
I hope that someone does not immediately prove me wrong again.
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ea66
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#29 Post by ea66 »

I have a question about mixing Testing and Unstable branches...

By default I use Testing and would like to have some packages updated from
Unstable each time I run dist-upgrade [or safe upgrade].
Now using this how-to I set the preferred branch to testing and pinned rtorrent to be updated from unstable, like so:

Code: Select all

Package: rtorrent
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 990
and rtorrent updates nicely...

The thing is this is only one package, that does not require any other packages to be updated along with it [at least not at the moment].
When I try to do the same with Wine, I get a dependency problem that other required packages like libwine, wine-alsa etc. can't be upgraded.

Now my question is how to force apt to update the pinned package and all the required packages along with it? Of course I could simply pin the needed packages in apt preferences but this is rather problematic, cause the names or number of packages required by wine changes sometimes and I would have to fix the pins... besides it's a lot of work ;)

Any ideas?

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rickh
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#30 Post by rickh »

As I state in the howto, I would not worry about "pinnning" for a specific program like wine. As long as you have your default release set to Testing in apt.conf, the only thing that will be updated from Unstable is applications that you have already updated from there with the -t option. Of course, that includes the application's dependencies. Wine's dependencies, though tend to be quite a closed environment. In other words, they are applications and libraries specifically related to Wine.

Once the version of Wine you are updating from Unstable moves to Testing, the default source for it will move back to Testing. Again, "apt-show-versions | grep unstable" is your friend here.

One thing I have noticed in this technique that may cause confusion: On an upgrade, applications which have the same version in Testing and Unstable will be reported (on the terminal output from "upgrade") as coming from Unstable. It is misleading, and those packages are not, in fact, being flagged for future updates from Unstable.
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reidar
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#31 Post by reidar »

I am trying this again, after having gone back to etch again :-)

I now started with etch, upgraded to lenny, and then wanted to start doing as explained in this article. But on my system /etc/apt/apt.conf is a directory rather than a file. Is there a misprint, or should I create an apt.conf file in the /etc/apt/apt.conf/ directory?

-r

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rickh
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#32 Post by rickh »

/etc/apt/apt.conf should not be a directory. Assuming that directory is empty, I would remove it and create the file.
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reidar
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#33 Post by reidar »

Hmmm, strange thing is, it is not empty.

Code: Select all

mosvold-laptop:~# ls /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/
00trustcdrom  01autoremove  10periodic  70debconf
-r

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rickh
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#34 Post by rickh »

apt.conf.d is a directory. You don't have to be concerned with that. The "file" you are interested in is apt.conf
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reidar
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#35 Post by reidar »

Aaah, I actually didn't see the ".d" until now...
How dyslectic can a man be...

Thanks, and sorry for bothering you with such stupidities :-)

-r

Eck
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#36 Post by Eck »

Hey again,

rickh, does what I did here:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=101428#101428

with /etc/apt/preferences seem to be correct to handle the situation with my 3rd party repo's?

And, what about that security repo? Is what I did in there okay for having that repo do its stuff (being preferred when it pushes something to Lenny)?

As I said in the post, I had tried the apt.conf way and aptitude was showing the Lenny versions instead of my 3rd party versions. Probably because putting in a default distro designation for it in an apt.conf makes it pin to 990 and being an official distro overrides any 3rd party repos.

Same thing happened with apt/preferences (with no apt.conf) until I lowered Lenny to Pin 500. Then things appeared to get sorted in the correct manner.

Just not sure, and concerned about the security repo. But as far as I know it looks okay.

What do you think?
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rickh
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#37 Post by rickh »

I have read and studied a bit about pinning, but I don't use it myself. I choose to not install applications that can't be handled by apt.conf alone. Therefore I don't feel qualified to render an opinion on your fairly intricate setup.

What I would do is use apt-cache policy <package-name>. It gives the pin value and possible source for any package you are interested in. If I were experimenting, that's how I'd do it.

If you're using Sid, the security repo is not an issue, since any security upgrade will be posted to Sid immediately anyway.
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Eck
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#38 Post by Eck »

No, still on Lenny. That's why I put Sid all the way down to a pin of 80. The only things I installed from Sid were the linux-image-2.6-k7 and the linux-headers-2.6-k7. Those pulled in the appropriate 2.6.22-k7 Kernel and Headers.

Aptitude still pulls its upgrades from Lenny after setting that up and things appear okay, but I'm mostly concerned with that testing security repo.

You know, I think putting the default-release in apt.conf is equivalent to putting the apt-pin at 990 in apt/preferences. It appeared to have the same effect. I needed to lower testing to 500 and put unstable at 80 to get the results I wanted from the Shame Compiz Fusion, WineHQ, and, debian multimedia. Those, as you see, are way up in the 990's so they hopefully take precedence. That's not possible with apt.conf, or at least it didn't work out correctly when I tried it. Aptitude would pull everything from testing, disregarding the 3rd party repo's. That wouldn't be right, so that's why I did what you saw.

Thanks again. I just wish I could be certain the security repo is going to do what it's supposed to the way I have it in there.
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rickh
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#39 Post by rickh »

I just wish I could be certain the security repo is going to do what it's supposed to the way I have it in there.
Here is a good link to keep track of security issues in Unstable and Testing.

http://security-tracker.debian.net/trac ... se/testing
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Eck
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#40 Post by Eck »

Thanks. Maybe I can check what I'm getting against that list and see if I get the new fixes from the testing security repo when they're mentioned there. At least at first to see if what I've got is working.

The whole point of having the repo there is so I don't need to go check things on my own, but perhaps I'll be able to see if I have it setup right this way.
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