[wplug] Xserver debug leads to questions

[Chet Hosey]

Brandon Kuczenski wrote:

> So, I would kind of like to downgrade to the functional version of the
> code that I used to run.  Now, xserver-xfree86 is still in the Debian
> stable distribution, but in the testing distribution xserver-xorg is a
> dependency for xserver-xfree86.  It seems to me that if I installed
> the stable xserver then I'd be back to my desired functionality.  Is
> there an apt-fu way to do that?
>
> Thanks and regards,
> Brandon

Absolutely! It's called "pinning", and it's perfect for such situations.

You specify both distributions, such as testing and stable, in
/etc/apt/sources.list.

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free


Then you specify some priorities in /etc/apt/preferences:

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 500

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 600

Package: xserver-xfree86
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 1001


This tells apt-get to prefer packages from testing to stable, except
that the specific xserver-xfree86 package from stable takes priority
over versions from anywhere else.

Check out the apt_preferences man page or check Google for "apt pinning"
for more information, especially more details on the priority numbers
(the ones I've listed should work, but it may be worth reading the docs
too) and how they play into choosing what to install/upgrade.

You can try a command line like "apt-get -t stable xserver-xfree86",
although you'll probably have to play with dependencies (such as
removing certain packages, including xserver-xorg) before you can get it
to happily downgrade to xserver-xfree86.

There is a good bit of documentation out there and I believe you're
fairly familiar with package management, so hopefully you'll be able to
get something working.

Chet