Wanting to learn Debian

[LuckyTaxi]

I'm running etch and want to be able to update it w/ any security fixes that are released. however, when it comes to packages, i want the latest and the greatest. Is this possible? if so what changes do i need to make in my sources.list file.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: lilcam
I'm running etch and want to be able to update it w/ any security fixes that are released. however, when it comes to packages, i want the latest and the greatest. Is this possible? if so what changes do i need to make in my sources.list file.

Not entirely.

Etch is based on slightly older but really stable packages. Some newer software will compile and run fine on it. But a lot of newer software is completely incompatible with it. Etch is really for people who demand stability over bleeding edge.

Lenny would probably be a better fit for you. Don't let the "tesing" label scare you away. Lenny is for the most part as stable as Ubuntu. In order for packages to be ported from sid to lenny they have to be pretty stable. If running Debian and running newer software are important to you, then lenny is the right choice.

 

[Tarrant64]

It's been awhile since I have used Linux, and especially using the apt-get feature. I thought in the sources.list file there were a list of sites somewhere that you could add where you want it to look for updates. I used to add a few sites when I worked on Debian servers at the University.

I was using "woody" then.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

hmmmm ... so its not like my beloved freebsd where Im able to run bleeding edge software but my base system gets security updates and what not from the current branch.

I couldve sworn i would be able to do this with debian.

 

[soonerproud]

You would have to add lenny or sid sources to your list. The problem with this is you are creating a recipe to borking your etch install when you do that due to software incompatibilities. Lenny gets security updates (as does sid) so moving to it would give you everything you desire with much less chance of disaster.

 

[Nothinman]

hmmmm ... so its not like my beloved freebsd where Im able to run bleeding edge software but my base system gets security updates and what not from the current branch.

Not really, unlike the BSDs there's no "base system" separated from the rest of the packages, they're all treated equally. You might be able to get something like that to work with multiple apt sources and apt pinning like soonproud suggests but it's a PITA and as soon as you install something from sid or lenny that requires a newer glibc, Xorg, etc you'll end up upgrading half of your system anyway.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

So, is lenny "stable" enough to run as a server OS for postfix, mysql, apache?

I would run etch but i dont feel like compiling from source. Lenny seems to have the latest versions of postfix, dovecot, mysql, etc...
I tried centos but I'm not even going to go there w/ the broken dependecies.

 

[Nothinman]

lenny is testing which means it's the midway between stable and unstable. Once a package sits in unstable without too many "bad" bugs it gets pushed to testing and eventually testing becomes the new stable. It really depends on how badly you really need those newest versions, IMO you don't.

 

[Brazen]

yeah, IMO there is no real advantage to running the Testing version of those daemons to running the Stable version. Unless there is some specific feature that has been added that you know for a fact you can not do without.