How to survive backports upgrades using apt preferences

So, a lot of us have had trouble with all-out upgrades of X-related stuff with backports enabled. The thing is, that shouldn't happen, because the default setup in Debian is different than in #!.

If you look at /etc/apt/preferences, unless you've been apt-pinning stuff (but even if you've been apt-pinning and haven't changed anything related to Squeeze), you'll see this

Package: *
Pin: release n=statler
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *
Pin: release n=squeeze
Pin-Priority: 100

By default, backports get a pin priority of 100, so in regular Debian, where Squeeze has (I think) a priority of 500, bakcports only upgrades packages you choose to upgrade.

So, to survive the trouble most of us have been having in the last weeks, you do a

sudo  <editor> /etc/apt/preferences

and change the squeeze pin priority to 500. Update and upgrade, and no more breakage unless you choose to have it.

Last edited by el_koraco (2011-08-30 14:38:23)