apt pinning forces to testing packages

[modo72]

Hello out there, I installed a pure SID system on a VM to have a test environment. On my main system I use testing as the default with some packages from Sid and I do this of course with pinning. I want to add the other repos stable/testing and oldstable as well into my repository and reused my preferences file now with unstable as default:

Code: Select all

Package: *
Pin: release n=unstable
Pin-Priority: 1000

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: *
Pin: release n=stable
Pin-Priority: 300

Package: *
Pin: release n=oldstable
Pin-Priority: 50

Package: *
Pin: release n=oldoldstable
Pin-Priority: 20

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian
Pin-Priority: -10

Now unstable has the highest priority, which it's has anyway, because it has always the latest version. But this system leads to "testing as default"? Which is really odd. Where is the flaw?

Thanks

BR /Christian

[fabien]

According to 'man 5 apt_preferences' testing is the only correctly defined suite in your configuration file:

the Archive: or Suite: line
names the archive to which all the packages in the directory tree belong. For example, the line "Archive: stable" or "Suite: stable" specifies that all of the packages in the directory tree below the parent of the Release file are in a stable archive. Specifying this value in the APT preferences file would require the line:

Pin: release a=stable

the Codename: line
names the codename to which all the packages in the directory tree belong. For example, the line "Codename: bookworm" specifies that all of the packages in the directory tree below the parent of the Release file belong to a version named bookworm. Specifying this value in the APT preferences file would require the line:

Pin: release n=bookworm

in other words: use 'a=suite' or 'n=codename'

[FreewheelinFrank]

I don't use pinning, but I'll take a guess.

Code: Select all

Pin release n=

refers to a codename (Sid, Bookworm, Bullseye etc) and

Code: Select all

Pin release a=

refers to a suite (Unstable, Testing, Stable etc).

So

Code: Select all

Pin: release n=unstable

is incorrect and ignored but

Code: Select all

Pin: release a=testing

is correct and applied.

https://difyel.com/linux/etc/apt/preferences/

[modo72]

Thank you all. I didn't see that I messed up the config file with the n options instead of keeping everything with a