On Tue, 2003-12-02 at 23:03, Barry Hawkins wrote: > On Dec 2, 2003, at 11:43 AM, Michel Dänzer wrote: > > > On Tue, 2003-12-02 at 17:31, Barry Hawkins wrote: > >> On Dec 2, 2003, at 11:10 AM, Michel Dänzer wrote: > >> > >>> On Tue, 2003-12-02 at 16:37, Barry Hawkins wrote: > >>>> > >>>> localhost:~# apt-cache policy xserver-xfree86 > >>>> xserver-xfree86: > >>>> Installed: (none) > >>>> Candidate: 4.2.1-14 > >>>> Version Table: > >>>> 4.3.0-0pre1v4 0 > >>>> 1 ftp://ftp.debian.org main/binary-powerpc/ Packages > >>>> 1 http://http.us.debian.org ../project/experimental/main > > > > [...] > > > >> Yep, it says 1. At one point, to force dselect to show me the > >> experimental packages, I had edited my sources.list to have only > >> http://http.us.debian.org ../project/experimental/main. Could that > >> have given it the value of 1 that you seem to find unusual? > > > > Ah, possibly. You should probably revert to the canonical form. > > > Michel, > Well, I guess this begs the question: "What does it mean to 'revert to > the canonical form'?"
I meant the canonical form of the sources.list lines, but I misread some of the above, so that can probably be ignored; I have no idea why it's 1 basically. :\ Then again, I'm not even sure it matters... > As for the front end I am using, for now I am still speaking of dselect. Which may still not support multiple package versions, in which case I wouldn't expect to find anything about them in its documentation... > If dselect is so poor, why is it the default recommendation on all the > Debian documentation? Tradition, and I think aptitude didn't quite make it to be usable enough for woody. AFAIK this will change for sarge though. > [...] have since read the following man pages: dselect, sources.list, > dpkg, apt-get, deb, and apt-cache. Thanks. > So far the only reference to specifying a specific version of a package > has been in the apt-get man page, where it mentions /etc/apt/preferences > and its use for "pinning". Pinning is the most powerful and complex way; as I hinted in an earlier post, -t/--target-release/--default-release is another way, there's also package/distribution to select the distribution for a single package. -- Earthling Michel Dänzer | Debian (powerpc), X and DRI developer Software libre enthusiast | http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=daenzer
