Re: [OT] Debian Mixed System

[Muhammad Alkarouri <malkarouri at yahoo dot co dot uk>]

On Tue, 2004-06-29 at 19:49, Nadim Shaikli wrote:
> --- Mohammed Elzubeir wrote:
> > Muhammad Alkarouri wrote:
> >
> > More explanation: I cannot use debian unstable or testing because they
> > don't have security updates, which are important to me as I am a network
> > admin. And I cannot use stable because it is too old for my taste.
> > Switching when Sarge comes out is not a solution as I will probably have
> > the same problem after another year or two.
> >
> > > In reality, there is no good answer to this. Your best bet is to keep
> > > your system mostly on 'stable' and grab packages from different branches
> > > of debian (unstable or testing.. or even experimental, depending on your
> > > needs). 
> 
> I'm a newbie to Debian (and a convert :-) but can't you specify to
> use "stable/updates" on your security entry in your sources.list file ?
> Would that accomplish what you are trying to do ?
> 
> I might be missing something (again newbie here), but that seemed
> appropriate to note.
> 

Not exactly. Say I want to use kernel 2.6 (for some hardware support),
or GNOME 2.6 (for better Arabic support). I wouldn't find it in Debian
stable. So I will probably either get it from testing, debian backports
(www.backports.org), or - at worst - unstable. I will not have updates
for these from stable/updates, and I wouldn't have timely updates from
testing, backports, or unstable. They do update on their own pace.

This means that either I don't use kernel 2.6  or gnome 2.6, or have to
check general advisories and recompile/patch them on my own, which is
obviously not convenient. Stable will also leave me with Postfix
1.1.something, and a number of obsolete packages.

I think there is testing/updates, but it is not covered by the debian
security team. Anybody knows anything about it?

> Salam.
> 
>  - Nadim
> 

Salam,
Muhammad Alkarouri