Debian operating system

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Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 59000 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.

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Whats the right way to install experimental packages on a stable installation? (self.debian)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by cal4 to c/[email protected]

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I've found myself immersed in RPM land for so long that I seem to have forgotten the "proper" way of doing things. I jumped ship for Debian 12 before the recent Red Hat nuttiness, but I wanted to keep Gnome 44.

To install Gnome 44 and took the following steps:

Added the following lines to the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list:

deb http:ftp.debian.org/debian experimental main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main

Ran apt update (without upgrade) and proceeded to install Gnome components using the command:

apt install -t experimental baobab eog evince gdm3 gjs gnome-backgrounds gnome-calculator gnome-characters gnome-contacts gnome-control-center gnome-disk-utility gnome-font-viewer gnome-keyring gnome-logs gnome-menus gnome-online-accounts gnome-remote-desktop gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions gnome-software gnome-system-monitor gnome-text-editor gnome-user-docs mutter gnome-desktop3-data

Additionally, I executed the command:

sudo apt-mark auto baobab eog evince gdm3 gjs gnome-backgrounds gnome-calculator gnome-characters gnome-contacts gnome-control-center gnome-disk-utility gnome-font-viewer gnome-keyring gnome-logs gnome-menus gnome-online-accounts gnome-remote-desktop gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions gnome-software gnome-system-monitor gnome-text-editor gnome-user-docs mutter gnome-desktop3-data

(Note: I discovered these commands from a now deleted Reddit post, but they aligned with my previous experiences with Fedora and BSD.)

Finally, as a precautionary measure, I commented out both lines in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list to avoid inadvertent updates in the future. Fortunately, everything went according to plan, and I'm currently using Gnome-Web on Gnome 44. However, in hindsight, I realize I should have conducted more research before diving in. Now, I'm curious to know if there was a more optimal approach to achieve the same outcome. Is there a better way to I could have gotten the specific newer packages?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should change priorities via apt preferences making experimental repo having lower one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, doing so you don't need to comment out lines in sources list. But first read documentation to learn which exact values of priority should be used.

But in general I don't recommend mixing packages from experimental and stable. I got in troubles when I did, some software did not work properly.

[–] cal4 2 points 1 year ago

I think you're both right. I sort of remember doing that in the past and it is probably what I was looking for.

I have a desktop and laptop for work that run mainline stable packages just like the Devs intended. I have a personal laptop that has no important data. It is 90% just for Lemmy doom scrolling, youtube and playing with things that might break my Linux install.