On Sat, 1 Feb 2025, Max Nikulin wrote: > On 01/02/2025 02:34, Eddie wrote: > > In Synaptic go to "Settings" - 'Preferences" - "Distributions" > > then select "Prefer Versions From" - backports > > Do not do it. It is not a supposed way to use backports. > <https://backports.debian.org/> > > It is therefore recommended to only select single backported packages > > that fit your needs, and not use all available backports.
I find the instructions for synaptic at wiki.debian.org/Backports are incorrect and misleading. It seems to me now that synaptic is not the correct tool for managing backported packages, apt on the command line is much preferable. > I do not use Synaptic, but from another message in this thread I suspect that > it sets APT::Default-Release somewhere in /etc/apt/apt.conf or > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/. This is a deprecated setting with some non-obvious > pitfalls: > <https://wiki.debian.org/AptConfiguration#Be_careful_with_APT::Default-Release> > For those who followed the suggestion, I recommend to inspect > /etc/apt/apt.conf and /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ and to *remove* the > APT::Default-Release line. I grepped through /etc/apt/apt.conf and /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ and found no cases of APT::Default-Release. > If some equivalent of "apt upgrade" has been executed since setting default > release to backports then the following command should report much more > packages than intentionally installed from backports and their dependencies): > > apt list '?narrow(~i,~Astable-backports)' With option -a this command reports yt-dlp/stable-backports,now 2025.01.26-1~bpo12+1 all [installed] yt-dlp/stable 2023.03.04-1 all so only yt-dlp is reported. > Roger, you likely did not do an action similar to "apt update" after adding > the backports repository. I ran apt update after adding the backports repository. I got this output: root@maria ~ emacs /etc/apt/sources.list root@maria ~ apt update Get:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security InRelease [48.0 kB] Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease Get:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates InRelease [55.4 kB] Get:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports InRelease [59.0 kB] Get:5 https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease [1,825 B] Hit:6 https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable stable InRelease Get:7 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports/main amd64 Packages [280 kB] Get:8 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports/main Translation-en [233 kB] Get:9 https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable/main amd64 Packages [1,215 B] Get:10 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports/contrib amd64 Packages [5,616 B] Get:11 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports/contrib Translation-en [5,448 B] Get:12 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports/non-free amd64 Packages [11.1 kB] Get:13 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports/non-free Translation-en [7,320 B] I only need backports for one package, yt-dlp (to download a Bahco service manual in a .mkv file). I will now remove backports from sources.list, and re-run apt update. Thanks to everyone who replied to my original post. Roger
