On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, David wrote: > Is there a window maker package for the stable release?
for most packages in unstable, you can easily compile them for stable. i don't actually know of any exceptions, but i expect that there would be a few programs which absolutely depend on libc6 development tools. so, to compile an unstable package for stable you do: 1. make sure you have all the development tools installed - compiler and dev libraries, dpkg-dev, debmake, and others. remember, you need to install the -dev packages for any libraries which the package is dependant upon. e.g. libc5-dev for all packages, xlib6-dev for X programs (many X progs also require xpm-dev), etc. in your case, you'd want to set up one of your machines as a complete development system - install every development package you're ever likely to need and do your compiling on that. 2. mkdir /usr/src/foo cd /usr/src/foo 3. download the source files. for the hypothetical package foo version X.X, that would be: foo_X.X-1.diff.gz foo_X.X-1.dsc foo_X.X.orig.tar.gz 4. extract the debianised source code with: dpkg-source -x foo_X.X-1.dsc 5. cd foo-X.X 6. edit the source and Makefile(s) if required. 7. compile the program and build a package by typing: build 8. if all goes well, you can install the package with dpkg as normal. cd .. dpkg -i foo_X.X-1_i386.deb be warned: the above is mostly accurate but quite simplified. for simple packages it will be as straightforward as this. more complex packages will be harder...start with something simple for practice. > Otherwise I imaging this is annother of those I'm using the unstable > stuff and really shouldn't be... yeah. you don't want to run unstable at the moment....especially X stuff. X just got released re-compiled for libc6 recently. wait until it settles down a bit before trying it. in general, however, it is quite safe to follow the HOWTO that was posted here recently on upgrading to libc6/unstable....then you can run select packages from unstable - just don't do a full upgrade to unstable at the moment! craig PS: hunt around for more info on compiling debian packages before trying this. somebody (i forget who at the moment) is maintaining a FAQ/web page which is much better than the notes above. i can't remember the URL right now...search through the debian-user archives, there was some discussion on it within the last few weeks. -- craig sanders networking consultant Available for casual or contract temporary autonomous zone system administration tasks. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .