[Serusers] debian question

[Alexander Mayrhofer]

On (26.02.04 16:31), Klaus Darilion wrote:
> So, what are your common practices to overcome such problems (the trade 
> off between stable/old software and unstable/new software)?
> 
> Do you use Debian testing?
> Do you use just the base packages on stable and compile mysql 4 yourself?
> Do you use backports or do you mix stable/testing?

I use testing/unstable mixed environment on my desktop machine (mainly
because the fancy features of recent KDE/Gnome versions). I prefer
stable on my server machines (for matter of stability and security
updates). 

When i need a more recent version of a certain package for my system, i
try to build a "backport" by myself by downloading debian source
packages of the testing version onto my stable maching, and
dpkg-buildpackage(ing) it. If that doesn't work without changes, i try 
to use backports from eg. www.apt-get.org. I try avoiding mixing 
"native" stable/testing/unstable packages.

So, my recommendation would be to fetch mysql 4 source packages from
packages.debian.org, and try to build them. If that fails, try a
backport.

Another option (not the best one, though!) would be to use "alien",
which tries to convert rpm packages into deb packages. YMMV depending
on the package.

What i try to avoid at (nearly) any cost is "./configure; make; make
install" type of software installation. That clutters your machine with
myriads of files, invisible dependencies, and makes it quite hard to
upgrade to a new Debian release. Therefore, i love SER just for the fact 
that Debian packaging files are included. 

cheers

axelm