[wplug] Debian HELP

[Eric C. Cooper]

On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 01:32:28PM -0400, R.E.Coutch wrote:
> Had to comment out the stable CD's otherwise I got an error about
> MMap out of space.

Add the following to /etc/apt/apt.conf to fix this (a smaller limit
might work too):

APT {
  Cache-Limit 16777216;
  ... any other APT defaults ...
}

> I tried to get KDE by entering:
> apt-get install -t unstable kde
> but received multiple errors about missing dependancies.

To get the pinning feature ("-t unstable") to work right, you have to have
/etc/apt/preferences set up correctly.  See "man apt_preferences".

A useful command to debug it is "apt-cache policy <package>".  It will
list the different versions of the package, and tell you which one
would be installed by apt-get by default (without -t).

> BTW - What exactly consitutes UNSTABLE vs. STABLE?
>      I've got a couple Linux installations running leading edge stuff that 
>      I haven't had a bit of trouble with.
>      Would security bugs/flaws be considered a reason to call someting 
>      unstable or just a program that crashes?

See http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-ftparchives.en.html.  Basically,
packages are first put into unstable for bleeding-edge types to test,
then move to testing, and into stable only when a new official release
comes out. Security fixes are back-ported very diligently to stable
via the stable/updates repository on security.debian.org (it's one
reason why the stable release is very attractive for server admins).
In unstable and testing, a security fix would typically just result in
a new, higher version of the package.

-- 
Eric C. Cooper          e c c @ c m u . e d u