One tip: if you're planning the ugrade to unstable, it's easier to do it before installing a wad of stuff.

If your're getting dependencies issues, delete the conflicting packages, note them someplace, and reinstall them later, often works.

Or join us at Jabber (iwethey.org, group chat ziwt). Peter and I are there now.

I use Gabber (Gaim is supposed to be better but I can't figure it out). Peter may have an AIM account which is why you'd see him but not me. I don't see you.... Sure you're on the right transport?

Log on to server iwethey.org, transport 'jabber', create a userid. I'm either 'kmself' or 'karsten'. Gabber is typical Gnome POS where you don't know what your settings are because they're in at least three different locations.

First point: Debian doesn't promise you the latest and greatest of everything. It promises you an overall managed system, which for values other than unstable and experimental, mostly works.

The KDE/Debian issue is covered in the [link|http://davidpashley.com/debian-kde/faq.html|KDE3 and Debian : Frequently Asked Questions]. In particular, the matter of KDE3 in testing is [link|http://davidpashley.com/debian-kde/faq.html#id2801433|here]. There were major library conflicts for a period of time, KDE3 wasn't integrated back with Debian until well into 2003.

I'd also strongly suggest you NOT go to unstable until you've spent a while in testing. Things break. You need to know how to fix them. They may not be fixed for a while. You have been warned.

If you want to run a handful of 'unstable/Sid' packages in a largely 'testing/sarge' system, then pin individual packages. Note that this solution IS NOT RECOMMENDED for running testing/unstable packages in 'stable' due to the large development lag of stable. Even pinning between testing and unstable can be interesting.

That said, you can almost always get what you want if you work with the system rather than against it.

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• Pinning can be used to bridge testing/unstable, giving most of the benefits of testing (fewer bugs) with the latest packages from unstable. There are times (eg: the recent libc 3.x migration) where even here the gap is large.
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• You can add specific additional apt sources for specific packages. Eg: my OOo source gives me OpenOffice in testing. I believe it's not otherwise available (have to check as I don't wrestle with this much).
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• You can get specific packages (in DEB or RPM format) from a source, and attempt installing them. You may have to deal with package dependencies, but you're basically no worse off than you are under RH, only for the specific packages you're managing locally.
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• You can install from sources or binaries to /usr/local or /opt. I did this with OOo prior to there being DEBs for it. You further have the option of just treating these as tarballs, managing them with stow, using the 'equivs' package to register dependencies/capabilities, or build your own local DEBs for managing the packages.
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• However you create or install your own local packages, hold them with echo packagename hold | dpkg --set-selections so that they aren't updated/replaced by APT in system upgrades. You control this behavior.
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The result of all of this: you have a distribution which painlessly and gracefully manages the 12,000+ packages for which you don't particularly care about, while giving you all the tools you need to manage the one or two, or dozen, or hundred, packages you want to explicitly dictate.

If you insist on overriding the packaging system or rushing off to unstable without a full understanding of what you're doing, you're going to encounter problems. Downgrading unstable => testing is nontrivial (ask Greg, Mike, Peter, and Scott). I'll provide some advice, but no sympathy (not that your black heart needs same).

If you ask for advice before doing something stupid, you're going to find you've got a trove of expertise here. Debian-user (mailing list), and #debian at irc:irc.debian.org are also good sources of information.

\r\nBut going with non-unstable would not have helped me, since I'm already running a version of KDE later than the one available with the non-unstable.\r\n

Re-read what I wrote. If you want to track a particular developer (or other) release of a package, you can do so. Debian then manages the other 99.9916% of available packages for you, while you worry about keeping up with the Joneses on KDE3.

You're correct in identifying that the proposed Debian solution doesn't address your specific requirement WRT KDE. You're missing the forest for the leaf in failing to note that your maintenance needs for all other packages are now addressed.

...and let these folks do the talking.

Conquests
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broomberg
\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=101369|zIWETHEY Comment: "...h error" by kmself]\r\n\r\n

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folkert
\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=64176|zIWETHEY Comment: "...re..." by gfolkert],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=67895|zIWETHEY Comment: "Rick..." by gfolkert],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=70921|zIWETHEY Comment: "...os..." by gfolkert],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=72936|zIWETHEY Comment: "....Okay" by gfolkert],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=72988|zIWETHEY Comment: "...st..." by gfolkert],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=73209|zIWETHEY Comment: "...d...." by gfolkert],\r\n

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malraux
\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=21039|zIWETHEY Comment: "Muah." by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=68176|zIWETHEY Comment: "...nUsers++" by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=68445|zIWETHEY Comment: "...reg. :-P" by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=68607|zIWETHEY Comment: "...With Me?" by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=68609|zIWETHEY Comment: "...ear now." by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=69985|zIWETHEY Comment: "...E, sure." by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=72542|zIWETHEY Comment: "...k system" by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=72746|zIWETHEY Comment: "...ss again" by admin],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=101356|zIWETHEY Comment: "... nimrod." by admin]\r\n

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pwhysall
[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=5737|zIWETHEY Comment: "Gah." by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=15380|zIWETHEY Comment: "Er." by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=21031|zIWETHEY Comment: "...ages." by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=32830|zIWETHEY Comment: "...gggh." by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=34489|zIWETHEY Comment: "...table" by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=35494|zIWETHEY Comment: "... dust" by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42427|zIWETHEY Comment: "...RC..." by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=44604|zIWETHEY Comment: "...Linux" by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=44630|zIWETHEY Comment: "...bian"" by pwhysall],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=53020|zIWETHEY Comment: "...sions" by pwhysall]\r\n

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yendormike
\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=60853|zIWETHEY Comment: "...roller?" by Yendor],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=61128|zIWETHEY Comment: "...adcount" by Yendor],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=61828|zIWETHEY Comment: "...mpleted" by Yendor],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=64004|zIWETHEY Comment: "Re: Hmm..." by Yendor],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=68335|zIWETHEY Comment: "...heh heh" by Yendor],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=72518|zIWETHEY Comment: "...ted for" by Yendor],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=73178|zIWETHEY Comment: "...slated:" by Yendor],\r\n[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=101083|zIWETHEY Comment: "...l help." by Yendor]\r\n

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You'll note your own dossier's been started. (Are my eyes really brown?).

...with the gfolkert story. Rather similar. He had a system which worked for him. He insisted. Believed there was no such thing as a clean upgrade. And now...

Scott's another guy who uses Debian not because he wants to be more of a sysadmin, but because he can be less of one. It just works.

Mike makes the same point. Less emphatically, but IMO because he's not making a big deal about it, it's more compelling if you think about it. A quiet success, and he's converting more of his boxen as time goes by.

Peter's just an embarassment of riches. Yes, he's a tweaker. Full-on. But the way he just can't shut up about it now.... While his particulars don't match yours, he states the case for Debian well, worthwhile reading for that.

Besides, time's never wasted. You can alway serve as a bad example. Though Ross seems to be taking the lead there.