apt, Official slink CD-ROMs, and potato
I have a 2-CD "Official Debian GNU/Linux 2.1" set, LinuxMall edition; or just
plain 'slink'. I'd like to experiment with the 'potato' distribution (which
has an improved SVGA X server needed with my video hardware), and then
configure apt to get the needed spuds off the web, (running under dselect in
hopes that this is the easiest way), but also have it so that it gets any
duplicate files from the CD set.
If this isn't so clear, here's a generic example: given a dselect-ed request
for 'foo.deb', what's wanted is to have that file looked up in whatever package
database apt uses, and then compare the version number of 'foo.deb' on the CD-
ROM with that of the online potato 'foo.deb'. If the slink CDs have this same
version, it'd be better to get the particular package from the CDs, but if the
online potato distrib has a newer version of 'foo.deb', then the object is to
have apt fetch that online copy instead.
One minor difficulty is that, so far as I can tell, dselect only allows one to
add Debian distribution locations to its apt method. I can use dselect to add
'ftp://ftp.debian.org' to apt's list of places to look for .deb files, but
later on if I want apt to quit looking there, there's apparently no menu option
to make dselect forget a particular apt address. Currently my apt list from
dselect has gotten large and unwieldy, so it's no longer clear which location
has priority.
So, if dselect doesn't allow one to fine tune an apt location list, the
question is: which config file for apt should be edited? Another question
might be whether this usage of apt is reasonable or even possible to begin
with. Any pointers to relevant docs, HOWTO's, hints, and so forth would help
too and be much appreciated as well.
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