/etc/sources.list: which repositories to include when running non-stable?
 

I just updated my system from Sarge (stable) to Etch (testing) because I wanted a number of packages found only in the testing distribution.

I did this by changing the /etc/apt/sources.list file as follows, running 'apt-get update' and then 'apt-get dist-upgrade'

(Ignore the incorrect URLs, seems I can't post URLs)
Every ran smoothly but I am wondering, do I still need to keep the stable/updates and sarge lines in there?

In other words...

1. Are security updates that are applied to the stable repos. also applied to the etch repos.? Is having both of those lines in there redundant?

2. Should I keep the 'DEBIAN MAIN - STABLE' line in there? If so, why if I am running etch? Would a package update ever occur in stable before it is applied in testing?

Thanks.

Not sure about the Etch security as I just watch the debian-security-announce mailing list and get the updated packages from unstable but for sure you don't need the lines for stable in the sources.list you will never want packages from there anymore.

Personally, I never run mixed repositories. If you do, you need to use something called apt-pinning, which you can google about. I would just comment out the sarge lines and just use etch.

Just out of curiosity, did you have any problems with your dist-upgrade? I had a weird issue where gconf2 wouldn't install. I ended up having to purge it and run deborphan before reinstalling it.

I don't have gconf2 installed as I am not using a desktop manager. But to answer your question, nope no problems on my dist-upgrade.

Thanks for the replies... So if I have been running a "mixed" system how do I go about making the full jump to etch? Will commenting out the sarge lines and doing another apt-get upgrade work?

Also, I really only wanted to use etch because I needed access to the mediawiki package for my server. Was it a bad idea to jump to etch completely?

Comment out the sarge lines and then do an aptitude update to remove the Sarge repos from the cache and aptitude dist-upgrade (or apt-get dist-upgrade). That should do the trick.

As for jumping to etch completely, usually it's a matter of how stable you need your server. If it's a home box that you're okay with a few minor glitches on occasion, then it's no big deal. If it's a production server that can't suffer any instability at all, you may have jumped prematurely. Usually, production servers running stable try to get newer packages from backports.org if they exist.

But realize that Debian testing branch is more stable than most desktop distros and most packages have been tested thoroughly for more than a month before going into testing. But occasionally you might run into a hiccup... Of course, testing should be frozen soon since etch is set for release this december. Once it's frozen, I believe the only thing going on is bug squashing...

Thanks for the help! That worked.