[debian] sid/squeeze on freerunner

[Brian C]

Robin Paulson wrote:
> yes, but the packages i need require a long chain of dependencies from
> sid/squeeze, and i don't want to do that - i'll get a broken system
> very quickly. i'd rather get the whole OS
> 
> is there way in lenny to reliably upgrade to sid/squeeze?
> 
> i've heard the idea of changing all instances of 'lenny' to 'sid' in
> the sources.list file, but that sounds very flaky

Yes, if you just change lenny to sid, you should expect a lot of things
to break.  What you want to learn about is apt-pinning.  Google that.
You need to change your /etc/apt/sources.list to include both lenny and
sid and have an /etc/apt/preferences file that tells apt which packages
to pull from lenny and which from sid.

The problem will be this "long chain of dependencies."  Before you even
begin, you should investigate exactly what versions of each package will
be needed, then in your /etc/apt/preferences file, you can pin each of
those packages to sid, keeping lenny as the default for everything else.
 I assume by "long chain" you understand that when sid package A
requires sid package B you should also check the dependencies of sid
package B as it may require further upgrades (and so on...this is what
makes it a "chain.")  In looking into this you may learn that a required
dependency isn't in the arm sid repository that freerunner uses and then
you will be stuck, but better to learn that in advance than once you
have a broken system.

Brian