Re: Might look into that.
inthane-chan wrote:
Thing is, I've always learned best from Pain, and this seems like the best way to inflict Good Pain on myself... ;)
I salute your spirit. If you wish to go forward directly from where you are now, you need to find XFree86 4.2.1 packages that will install directly onto debian-stable without causing too many additional problems. Using the "pinning" features of apt (see the relevant passage in [link|http://linuxmafia.com/debian/tips|my Debian tips file] for how), you could certainly pull down debian-testing packages onto debian-stable, but there's quite a leap in versions, there, for both the xserver-xfree86 package and for others it depends upon. So, you end up with a system that is, in effect, part debian-stable and part debian-testing.
People do that under the mistaken impression that they're being conservative. The irony is that you'd be much less likely to encounter problems form a system that's 100% on debian-testing than from one that's part one, part the other.
Alternatively, you could pull down XFree86 4.2.1 packages from an unofficial apt repository that compiles them for woody/3.0. That will in theory fix the debian-testing-dependencies problem mentioned above, at the cost of needing to rely on packages that aren't part of Debian, and thus aren't guaranteed to meet Debian's standards. As it happens, there is such a repository, and you'll find it listed among the Usual Suspects: [link|http://apt-get.org/|http://apt-get.org/]. Note that the exact line you'll need to add to /etc/apt/sources.list is given for each unofficial site.
Then, do "apt-get update" to refresh the available-packages listings, and then whatever. (I guess, "apt-get install xserver-xfree86" and/or "apt-get dist-upgrade". You figure it out.)
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
