About backports
Backports are recompiled packages from testing (mostly) and unstable (in a few cases only, e.g. security updates) in a stable environment so that they will run without new libraries (whenever it is possible) on a Debian stable distribution
Backports cannot be tested as extensively as Debian stable, and backports are provided on an as-is basis, with risk of incompatibilities with other components in Debian stable. Use with care!
It is therefore recommended to select single backported packages that fit your needs, and not use all available backports.
Add backports to your sources.list
- Add this line
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main
to your sources.list (or add a new file to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/) - Run apt-get update
Install a package from backports
All backports are deactivated by default (i.e. the packages are pinned to 100 by using ButAutomaticUpgrades: yes in the Release files. If you want to install something from backports run:
apt-get -t squeeze-backports install "package"
of course you can use aptitude as well:
aptitude -t squeeze-backports install "package"
Get packages upgraded from backports.debian.org (Recommended!, only for lenny-backports(-sloppy))
Normally packages won't get upgraded automatically from backports.debian.org (due to the NotAutomatic flag). To get packages that you have installed from backports automatically updated you have to have add a pinning, either to /etc/apt/preferences:
Package: *
Pin: release a=lenny-backports
Pin-Priority: 200
This setting is recommended
Without this setting you don't get security updates
This is not necessary for squeeze-backports
lenny-backports-sloppy
To guarantee a clean upload path from lenny-backports to squeeze it is not allowed to upload backports from wheezy to lenny-backports. To allow new backports also in old-stable we created a new suite for everybody that prefer newer packages above a clean upgrade path: lenny-backports-sloppy. You can use it exactly as lenny-backports, just add another line to your sources.list and install new packages via apt-get -t lenny-backports-sloppy install
Subscribe to the security announce mailinglist
If you want to get announcements about security updates on backports.debian.org subscribe to the debian-backports-announce mailinglist.
Report Bugs
Please report bugs that you found in the packages to the backports mailinglist and NOT to the Debian BTS!