[Techtalk] running a mixed Debian system

[Hamster]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 15:39:12 -0800
Carla Schroder <carla at bratgrrl.com> wrote:

> Any particular issues with running a mixed stable/testing system? Or 
> testing/unstable? Can the unwary user get sucked into Dependency Hell
> Slough, or does it generally work OK?

My gateway computer is running a mixture of all three :-) And so far without
any probs. What's important to realise though is that it's not running any
form of GUI - no X, no KDE and no Gnome. So perhaps if you start adding
them, it ups the degree of difficulty or at least the potential for problems
to surface by a degree or two.

The way I've done it is to install Woody, and then edit apt.conf and add the
line:

APT::Default-Release "stable";

That way apt-get install will pull stuff by default from stable. 

Then in sources.list I have entries for all three releases. When I want to
install a newer release of a programme, I'll apt-cache show prog, find which
versions are available and run apt-get install -t testing prog or apt-get
install -t unstable prog

So far I've had no probs at all with my mixed environment setup, but do keep
in mind its a fairly simple setup, no gui.

Hamster