green wrote:
Mark Panen wrote at 2011-09-25 06:31 -0500:
Some packages i want to install on my Squeeze machine just don't have
the right dependencies or packages, so i take what i need from
testing. Am i going to bork my installation?
Perhaps, but probably not (according to my experience). Use packages from
backports instead, if available.
I mix stable/testing/unstable often with very little trouble. But I am
careful about what packages I upgrade, and my system is always either "mostly
stable" or "mostly testing". Generally, stand-alone packages can be upgraded
without any trouble, but core packages should be left alone. The more
reverse dependencies a package has, the more careful you should be about
upgrading it.
sort of depends on the packages
for o/s and core packages, I tend to rely on oldstable (i.e., Lenny) - I
try to keep a stable environment
for servers and applications (e.g., mailing list manager, blog engine) -
where currency tends to be important - I generally download and build
the upstream source - it takes a little more work to make sure
dependencies are in place, but I find that the upstream make files are
more reliable than the bleeding edge packaging. At least in my case, a
lot of the packages I use are developed on Debian - so the upstream
source is as good or better than the packaging.
specific example: I run a lot of mailing lists of one machine (actually
a VM):
- hypervisor (Xen) and O/S (Lenny) - basic installs, rely on apt- to
keep stuff current
- LAMP (the AMP part) - rely on apt-
- mail stuff (Postfix, Spamassassin, ClamAV, avavisd) - again, rely on
apt- but... requires some manual wiring together
- perl - rely on apt- for core; rely on cpan to update
- sympa - the mail list manager, built in perl - install from source -
it's makefile invokes cpan to install dependencies (but doesn't always
get things right - sometimes have to invoke cpan manually); then it
builds and runs just fine -- the upstream version is always several revs
ahead of the Debian packages, and I've yet to find a packaged version
that actually installs cleanly
granted, it's a bit harder to manage a system when one goes around the
package manager, but sometimes you can get better results
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In<fnord> practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
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