Tim Hull wrote: > I'm currently trying out both Debian and Ubuntu on my MacBook to see which > one I prefer. > Right now, I'm currently liking Debian better - the stability seems > better, and it seems easier to customize > - but I need to run software that's newer than what's in etch (not for a > lust for bleeding-edge, but simply for the reason > that my MacBook won't suspend or do proper power management in any kernel > older than 2.6.22). I also want to be > able to get updated packages such as the newest Firefox...er..Iceweasel > (still hate that name, would prefer something > less silly). > > I know the easy Debian solution is to run testing/unstable - it seems like > most people do. However, then you lose the advantage of > stability. I actually tried testing and unstable, but found a critical > bug pertaining to my video card - my system likes to reboot on suspend > with the > new Xorg drivers (yes, dutifully reported it to BTS). For this reason, I > figure I'll confine Lenny/Sid to a VM or chroot, and I've been looking > into > backports. However, backports.org doesn't seem to have what I need (it > only has 2.6.21 kernel, doesn't have the new acpi-support, not to mention > some > extra gstreamer plugins I wanted). What would be the ideal solution for > me? Is there a reliable way to roll my own backports using apt to pull in > dependencies? Can I build from Sid sources on an as-needed basis? I've > come across a tool called "apt-build" which pulls down dependencies and > builds from source - is it what I need? What should I put in my > sources.list ? > > On a side note, I will say that the one area I think FOSS lags behind > Windows and Mac is in updating individual system components. I LIKE being > able to update a few things without hackish solutions (i.e. build from > source tarballs) or updating my whole system. You can do it easily on > Mac/Windows, but it's quite difficult and unreliable on nearly every > distribution. I think Debian really ought to look into making backports > an official project and integrating it into the stable release as a way to > get > updates on an as-needed basis. It may even be an interesting idea to do > point releases of stable with some backports included. Has this ever been > discussed? It seems a lot better than simply speeding up the release > cycle... Hi Tim, Have you looked at apt-pinning? I think this gives you exactly what you're looking for. I personally don't find using testing loses me any stability but that's just my opinion. There's a simple introduction to apt-pinning that you can find here: http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html This may do the trick for you. Cheers, Jonathan -- Registerd Linux user #445917 at http://counter.li.org/
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