On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 09:42:42AM +0530, vishnu vardhan wrote: > OS : Lenny 5.0.3 > > I have installed openoffice from backports and transmission-gtk from > unstable. > > I have read a couple of articles about installing packages from stable, > unstable, etc.. and pinning of packages. > > My sources.list entries are as follows : > deb [1]http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free > deb [2]http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free > #deb [3]http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib > non-free > #deb [4]http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable main non-free contrib > > After I have installed transmission-gtk, I commented out the line of > unstable. > I did not created /etc/spt/preference file. I am still averse to pinning > of packages. > > Do I need to create a prefernce file ? and is it compulsory ? > Are there any more lines need to be added to sources.list file ? > If I did not create the preference file, and if I update the system [ > apt-get update, apt-get upgrade ] will any issues crop up ? > If I pin my packages, what word should I use for backports. e.g. Pin: > release a=testing. > > Please guide me. >
I can not offer you guidance. I can tell you that did not use a preferences file when I ran stable, etch, with backports installed. I did use aptitude for my package manager. It is supposed to have better dependency handling. I think I also read somewhere about aptitude respecting user selections. I made sure to set it not to make changes automatically. But it never asked to uninstall a backports package. (In the ncurses TUI under preferences.) There were quite a few backports packages on my system. If memory serves well, Open Office packages were among them. You can always wait to make a preferences file if aptitude asks to remove a backport package. If you do use pinning, I recommend only pinning the backport packages and all their dependencies to the backports archive. I recommend against attempting to design an overarching pinning policy for all your package management. The latter seems popular with some but unwise. -- Kind Regards, Freeman -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
