Using backports safely with apt/preferences

Many Ubuntu users like to have the latest versions of softwares and use backports for that. But backports tend to break the stability of a system, and it can be quite boring to comment/uncomment the backports line in /etc/apt/sources.list everytime you want to install a backport. Fortunately, apt/preferences is there to help us!

The changes to make

First of all, add the backports line for your release of Ubuntu in your sources.list. For example, on my feisty server I added:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty-backports main restricted universe multiverse


Now to set the preferences. In my /etc/apt/preferences file, I have:

Explanation: Backported packages have a lower priority
Package: *
Pin: release a=feisty-backports
Pin-Priority: 100


Installing a package from the backports

Now, let’s see what happens on my system. Backports have higher version numbers than the packages in feisty, feisty-updates and feisty-security, but all packages in feisty-backports have a priority of 100 (the default priority being 500), so they are never chosen for installation.

From then on, backported packages will not be installed by default. If I want to install a backported package, I have two ways of doing so:

Installing the package from backports but not its dependencies

apt-get install foo/feisty-backports

This will install package foo from feisty-backports, but the possible dependencies will not be taken in feisty-backports. This is safer but will not necessarily work.

For example:


$ sudo apt-get install -s postfix-mysql/feisty-backports
Lecture des listes de paquets... Fait
Construction de l'arbre des dépendances
Reading state information... Fait
Version choisie 2.4.5-3~feisty1 (Ubuntu:7.04/feisty-backports) pour postfix-mysql
Certains paquets ne peuvent être installés. Ceci peut signifier
que vous avez demandé l'impossible, ou bien, si vous utilisez
la distribution unstable, que certains paquets n'ont pas encore
été créés ou ne sont pas sortis d'Incoming.

Puisque vous n’avez demandé qu’une seule opération, le paquet n’est
probablement pas installable et vous devriez envoyer un rapport de bogue.
L’information suivante devrait vous aider à résoudre la situation :

Les paquets suivants contiennent des dépendances non satisfaites :
postfix-mysql: Dépend: postfix (= 2.4.5-3~feisty1) mais 2.3.8-2 devra être installé
E: Paquets défectueux
The installation fails because the necessary dependency is only present in feisty-backports.

Installing the package and its dependencies from backports

apt-get install -t feisty-backports foo

This will install package foo using the feisty-backports repository with a temporary priority of 990. Dependencies will be taken in feisty-backports aswell.

For example:

$ sudo apt-get install -s -t feisty-backports postfix-mysql
Lecture des listes de paquets... Fait
Construction de l'arbre des dépendances
Reading state information... Fait
Les paquets supplémentaires suivants seront installés :
postfix
Paquets suggérés :
procmail postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin resolvconf postfix-cdb
Les NOUVEAUX paquets suivants seront installés :
postfix-mysql
Les paquets suivants seront mis à jour :
postfix
1 mis à jour, 1 nouvellement installés, 0 à enlever et 4 non mis à jour.
Inst postfix [2.3.8-2] (2.4.5-3~feisty1 Ubuntu:7.04/feisty-backports)
Inst postfix-mysql (2.4.5-3~feisty1 Ubuntu:7.04/feisty-backports)
Conf postfix (2.4.5-3~feisty1 Ubuntu:7.04/feisty-backports)
Conf postfix-mysql (2.4.5-3~feisty1 Ubuntu:7.04/feisty-backports)


All the packages are taken from feisty-backport in this example.

Upgrading the system with all available backports

Let’s say I want to upgrade my system using all the available backports for the packages I use (which is not recommended). The command would be :
apt-get -t feisty-backports dist-upgrade

Ichthux.com has a new look too!

The ichthux.com website was broken for a long time. After I got a dedicated server, Raoul made a whole new website for Ichthux!

Visit the new website at http://www.ichthux.com!

A new look

I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time… So here is my blog’s new look!

This theme is kind of a mix between the blixed theme (the one I used before) and a 3-columns cutline. I hope to enhance it a bit if I have time this week.

Comments are welcome

Social Networking and OpenSource

I was reading about the Facebook vs. Google articles on Slashdot lately and thinking of a way to replace the Social Networking systems with OpenSource tools.

Social Networking systems provide tools like blogs or pictures albums. We already have very good tools to do this (Wordpress/Drupal/Gallery/etc.). What Social Networking systems have is also a way to link profiles together.

So I was thinking about a way to implement this using already existing OpenSouce technology. And I thought that Jabber could do that!

Let’s have a closer look at it:

• Jabber is a decentralized system; you can even run your own Jabber server and still connect with other users;
• Jabber has a concept of unique IDs that can interconnect easily;
• Jabber can be used with tons of clients on lots of platforms;
• Jabber has a concept of friends list;
• Jabber can provide information about user (homepage, location, etc);
• Lots of people already have a Jabber ID, even if they don’t know it (gmail accounts can be used as Jabber IDs through the GTalk servers).

So what if… we used Jabber to interconnect our websites? It could be a simple plugin for blogs/CMS that would connect to your Jabber server, log in, and retrieve your friends’ infos. The plugin could display a list of your friends using the avatars they provided. On hovering over the pictures, more info could be displayed, allowing you to go to their homepage, or even to contact them by IM!

I have searched a bit for such a plugin, but haven’t found much.

How would you like something like this?