Heres what I have enabled in apt
deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
deb http://apt.mepis.org/3.3.1/ unstable main
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ sid main

Now how do I keep up on security updates? I went here, www.debian.org/security/faq
and found this
Q: How is security handled for testing and unstable?
A: The short answer is: it's not.

Following another thread I decided to install apt-listbugs. Then went into synaptic marked installed packages for update. After looking through this for a while I decided to backout of this method.
There is probably no simple answer to this question. If you have a good tutorial bookmarked would you please share it?
Also a related question. In /etc/apt/preferences I've added a section that includes
Package: nvidia-kernel-2.6.10
Pin: version 1.0.7174-1+MEPIS.3.3
Pin-Priority: 1000

My Mepis version is 3.3.1. Should this section be edited to reflect this?
Thanks in advance for any help.
edit/ Is there anything else needing protection beyond the nvidia driver? /edit

A simple Google search on "Linux security" list a huge amount of material on this question, such as comparisons of LInux and Windoze:

http://os.newsforge.com/os/04/05/18/1715247.shtml

or resource centers:

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/O...inux/Security/

And a lot of technical discussions. That should help.

Sorry, my question was poorly worded. Let me try this again using Suse as an example.
Whenever possible I download software from the repositories maintained by Suse. When vulnerbilities are discovered Suse alerts the user and offers a patch. As long as new software comes from a Suse source and is installed with YAST, it is easy to keep up on the patches.
I did google before asking this question. Among the things I found while searching were suggestions to use apt-listbugs and marking all installed packages for upgrade. I don't like this method. Beside the fact that it's very slow, I'm not interested in updating the version of the software, only patching what is already installed. I was hoping to find an easy way to do this using synaptic.
My understanding is Mepis is based on 'unstable'. I'm going to try adding debian.org/security to the list of repositories in apt and see how that works.

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm an idiot. When googling for more information about this I found a thread discussing this very thing right below my post!
EDIT:EDIT: I meant here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...60#post1737360

Unlike what is stated, Debian has offered security support for testing since the 1st week of September:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel.../msg00006.html

Cheers

Thanks. I searched a long time and somehow missed this information.
People say 'google is your friend' but sometimes it just isn't.