[Techtalk] backport v compile from source for Debian

[dominik schramm]

Carla Schroder <carla at bratgrrl.com> writes:

> O Debian Gurus,
>
> Is there a reason to use a backport, rather than building from sources your 
> own self? for example, you want to run Postfix from Unstable on Woody. 
> Building from sources is pretty easy, why would you want to use a backport?

Sometimes compiling against the development headers from "stable"
is impossible because the program you're interested in depends on
a library version too new for "stable".

In that case it is necessary to make the sources compile against
the library version delivered with "stable". 
Hence the name "back-porting": "porting" because you have to adjust
the sources to make them compile on a so-far unsupported system
(maybe rather: not-supported-any-more), and "back" because the 
software would actually run on this system if only it were more 
recent.

Since this can be quite a cumbersome task, a binary package is made from 
this effort (by some benevolent people) incorporating all the necessary 
changes and ready to be downloaded and installed on "stable" without
the need to upgrade all the libs on which the package depends.

hope this helps,
dominik