I am obviously not ready to start downloading tarball's and building aps.

Right now I would like to load Wine and sqlite. I notice that the Mepis 11.0 Testing Packages repo has Wine 1.4 and sqlite - 3.7.9.

What do I have to do to be able to apt-get those?

The machine has a fresh load of Squeeze on it.

I'm thinking that I have to do something like this: insert the

repo path into my sources.list and remove the current repo that would have the older packages.

Is this right?

Thanks,
JP.

This is the current sources.list:

Wine is available from the Debian repositories. You probably don't want to try the Mepis packages. I have had success in the past using Ubuntu packages, but it really is hit-and-miss. If you must have a more up-to-date package, sometimes the following URL will help http://pkgs.org/ .

I really must make a further observation about this, because this is sooo dangerous. When people add other repositories, they often don't realize that now they have opened up their system to every other package in that repository. The system will try to upgrade based on that information. This has the potential (even likelihood) of screwing up a system completely.

To give an idea of what is involved, the nearest thing to a "right" way to do this follows. (There is no "right" way).

1. All dependencies must be noted with their version numbers. This info has to come from Mepis.
2. All dependencies that can be met from the Debian repositories should be installed from those repositories.
3. Then, and only then, should the Mepis repository be enabled.
4. Install only the package you want, i.e., Wine. The other dependencies will be pulled in.
5. Do not allow the package manager to make other changes in the same transaction. It will probably try.
6. Immediately disable the Mepis repository to prevent further interaction.

If you are extremely lucky, this might work. The risks include breaking your system.

There is no way I would try this. I would compile my own software first.

Yes, been reading more info, probably not a good idea.


Thanks,
JP.

Ubuntu and Debian are not compatible, so mixing Debian with Ubuntu can mess up your system. Mepis is fully compatible with Debian, so using the Mepis packages shouldn't do any harm, if you do it the right way. And this:is not what I would consider the right way. The right way for using only some packages from a repository would be to use APT's pinning.

1 members found this post helpful.

I stand corrected. The point I was trying to make is that mixing repositories that may not be designed to be mixed, while easily possible, is often a bad idea. I use aptitude because the interface shows you what is going on and it has the flexibility to handle these different scenarios. I always try to work within the Debian system as much as possible before going outside. I follow the same philosophy with the other distros I use. If people read these posts without doing a lot of homework, they might draw the conclusion that it is OK to just apt-get anywhere. Clearly, that is a bad idea.

Absolutely. Mixing repositories is nothing anyone should do without being aware of possible consequences and having the knowledge how to avoid them (or deal with them).

And of course that is the way it should be. Never get software from a different repo if it is available in your distributions repository. If you need the software compiled with different options than available in the repository it is IMHO a much better and cleaner way to make a package yourself than getting it from a different repository, except if you absolutely know that this repo is compatible with your distribution and you know how mixing repositories on your distribution is done the right way.

You are totally right on this, I second that. Never ever mix repositories if you don't know exactly what you are doing.

Wine in the Mepis repo is one package. Search forums.debian.net , it should be perfectly safe to install it from the Mepis repo. The problem you are going to run into : you are running Debian Stable, Mepis 11 is based on testing (I believe).

You can always add the repo then do
apt-get update
apt-get install wine -s
the second command will simulate the install but won't actually install anything. Pay close attention to what it wants to install/upgrade/remove. It should only be a couple of packages.
If it doesn't want to upgrade anything or remove anything then the install should be perfectly safe. You can hop over to forums.debian.net and ask stevepusser, he builds the packages for Mepis.

You can also use apt-pinning so only the packages you want get installed.
# Apt-Pinning for Beginners - http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

The important thing is to pay attention to what apt-get/aptitude want to do.

Well, I just loaded Mepis on my test box and was able to load Wine 1.4 and get RadioSure working, although it is not working perfectly.

I'm hoping that I will, someday, be able to reverse engineer the Mepis / Wine / RadioSure combination enough to get it working in Squeeze and/or Wheezy.

Anyway, on to more important things, namely, getting a database up to log data from my data collecting Arduino's.

I was advised (in another thread) to use sqlite3 and then remembered the Openoffice base. Is there any reason not to use Openoffice base? It is going to be a real simple database (ie: one flat table) not big. Just reading data off of the serial port and eventually off of the LAN and throwing it into the DB.

Thanks,
JP

1 members found this post helpful.

Mepis 11 is based on and compatible with stable. The only caution I'd highlight is you're planning on using the community test repo. There is a specific section in the Mepis wiki that deals with recommended use of the test repo.

Yes, I'm being careful. Would never think of doing this screwing around on one of my "serious" boxes. They are very happily running Etch and Squeeze.

Thanks,
JP