Apt-pinning on LMDE

[sindikat]

I want to make a priority of installing packages in order "LMDE packages -> Debian testing packages -> Debian unstable packages". In other words i want to install mostly packages from LMDE repos and only sometimes from normal testing and unstable. How should i arrange my /etc/apt/preferences?

[zerozero]

use with care (but if you break it will be a good experience)
http://wiki.debian.org/AptPreferences
http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

[sindikat]

It seems that i succeeded at apt-pinning (setting apt repository priority) on LMDE. My `/etc/apt/sources.list` currently looks like this:

Code: Select all

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ experimental main contrib non-free

My `/etc/apt/preferences` looks like this:

Code: Select all

Package: *
Pin: origin packages.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: origin debian.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 600

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 200

Package: *
Pin: release a=experimental
Pin-Priority: 50

So `sudo aptitude` allows only packages originating from linuxmint.com to install, and to install packages from Debian distribution, i need to add `-t <distribution>`, where <distribution> is testing, unstable or experimental.