packages not from stable

kushalkoolwal · 07-14-2009, 05:44 PM

Ok, here is an interesting question (at least as per me):

Let's say I installed a Debian stable (lenny) system and then slowly over a period of time I added some external repo likes testing,sid and some more repos from Ubuntu and installed packages from these repositories.

Now I would like to find out all the packages that are installed on my system which do not belong to the Debian stable branch.

Is there any command(s) that will print a list of such packages?

sigarni · 07-14-2009, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kushalkoolwal

Ok, here is an interesting question (at least as per me):

Let's say I installed a Debian stable (lenny) system and then slowly over a period of time I added some external repo likes testing,sid and some more repos from Ubuntu and installed packages from these repositories.

Now I would like to find out all the packages that are installed on my system which do not belong to the Debian stable branch.

Is there any command(s) that will print a list of such packages?

I am unsure about cli command, but I do know that in Synaptic Package Manager there is an option to list packages by "Origin". That is, by repo they come from. Perhaps that will get you started?

Sigarni

craigevil · 07-14-2009, 09:28 PM

1) Do NOT use Ubuntu repo
2) Use backports.org or backport the apps you need from sid yourself

Something like
dpkg -l | grep sidux | awk '{print $2}'
dpkg -l | grep google | awk '{print $2}'
change the sidux, google etc to whatever repo name you are looking for

$ dpkg -l | grep google | awk '{print $2}'
google-chrome-unstable

the trooper · 07-15-2009, 09:47 AM

Another way would be:

aptitude install apt-show-versions

Then search for the relevant packages for example:

apt-show-versions | grep unstable

And as Craigevil has said,don't mix Debian with it's derivatives.

kushalkoolwal · 07-15-2009, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by craigevil

2) Use backports.org or backport the apps you need from sid yourself

Craigevel, this is something that has crossed my mind many times. Do you know any good guide which explains (with an example) how to do this? Also in the past I have looked into the backporting issue but it seems that not all packages can be backported easily.

craigevil · 07-15-2009, 03:57 PM

backporting from sid is not difficult:
1) Add ONLY a "deb-src ..." line for sid to your sources.list. 2) apt-get update 3) apt-get install build-essential; apt-get build-dep packagename;apt-get -b source packagename; 4) install the resultant debs.

I know several people that run stable with a few packages from backports.org and things like pidgin, iceweasel all backported from sid themselves. Packages with a lot of depends can take a while to build though so be patient.

kushalkoolwal · 07-15-2009, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by craigevil

backporting from sid is not difficult:
1) Add ONLY a "deb-src ..." line for sid to your sources.list. 2) apt-get update 3) apt-get install build-essential; apt-get build-dep packagename;apt-get -b source packagename; 4) install the resultant debs.

I know several people that run stable with a few packages from backports.org and things like pidgin, iceweasel all backported from sid themselves. Packages with a lot of depends can take a while to build though so be patient.

How about about packages that we want to backport which depend on certain package (say A-4.2 and B-2.1) version which are not in stable. Then do we have to go and fetch those package (A-4.2 and B-2.1) sources and backport them first to in order to install our original packages. What if we get stuck in a spiral dependency trap. An example would let's say if I want to backport a xserver-xorg-video-<package> to stable - that would probably mean backporting the entire xserver-xorg package which is insane!!!