[plug] Two questions about Debian system and upgrading

[Patrick Coleman]

On 2/23/07, Shannon Carver <shannon.carver at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Bret,
>
> Okey, firstly, if you're referencing "Stable" repositories in your
> /etc/apt/sources.list, I'm pretty sure that's the only thing you have to
> change to switch between stable/unstable/testing.

That works for 'upgrading' from stable to unstable, or stable-testing
etc, but 'downgrading' (ie. unstable-stable) is a painful process and
can break things. The tools won't do it for you automatically for this
reason; have a look at
<http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/downgrade.html>.

It is possible, but it may be easier to just reinstall. I did it once
following the instructions above, and it worked, but YMMV.

Just changing the source lists won't do anything, as the 'unstable'
versions you have installed will almost always be higher than the
versions in the stable repository (AFAIK).

-Patrick
-- 
http://www.labyrinthdata.net.au