On Fri, Nov 03, 2000 at 03:34:32PM +0200, Shaul Karl wrote: > > I'm a potato user and I would like to know some things about it. > > I use my computer at home just to work, but I would like to know if I should > > upgrade to woody, because I would like to have the last packages of some > > programs, and potato does not have the last version(stable or not), and It > > really annoys me. > > > > So, any suggestions? > > > > > If you get annoyed by not having the latest version then you probably need to > upgrade. > But bear in mind that it is titled as unstable. Although past expreince shows > that it is rather stable, it could get broken. For example, a couple of weeks > ago a libc upgrade broke exim and for a couple of days I could not get or > send > e-mail. > > My suggestion is not to use it on a production machine unless one has to, and > at least waiting to hear that everything is stable enough.
If one really wants newer packages (or packages only available in woody), often (not always) it is possible to build a potato package from the woody source: 1. Add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list: deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian woody main contrib non-free 2. apt-get update 3. apt-get -b source <package_name> Occasionally this breaks because of versioned dependencies, etc., but I've had pretty good success adding new packages to a potato system. If you want the latest libc, etc., you are certainly better off upgrading to woody. At least the latest libc6 upgrade a few days ago didn't break anything. Bob
