Some of you on this list may be interested in testing the CVS aliencode branch.. I just added this command line option:
dit(bf(-t, --target-release, --default-release)) This option controls the default input to the policy engine, it creates a default pin at priority 990 using the specified release string. The preferences file may further override this setting. In short, this option lets you have simple control over which distribution packages will be retrieved from. Some common examples might me -t '2.1*' or -t unstable. Configuration Item: bf(APT::Default-Release) And the /etc/apt/preferences file which may contain things like: Package: apt Pin: version 0.3.10 Pin-Priority: 901 Package: * Pin: release stable Pin-Priority: 900 Package: * Pin: release * Pin-Priority: -1 The above will make the apt package go to version 0.3.10 or become uninstallable unless someone uses the -t option. Further, it will prefer all packages from stable and make all other non-stable sources uninstallable. Note this mechanism only controls which version of a package APT will select for installation - prior to this APT choose the newest automatic package. This mechanism also permits downgrades. Further, the command line has been expanded to support this notation: apt-get install apt/0.4.0 or apt-get install apt=stable I hope nobody sees any particular problem with APT getting this functionality... Sadly, I don't have a complete set of docs for this function yet, and I'm not finished my major source-incompatible changes to the library so this code isn't going into unstable for a good while yet. There is also a small issue with newer debconfs and CVS apt, debconf has a small utility which interfaces directly with APT for greater performance, but that utility is linked to a shlib that is not binary compatible with the new code.. Jason
