hmm.... so this could have just been caused by some problem with the repo server?
I ended up installing mongodb via the 10gen repos on both my debian server and LMDE laptop, which worked fine, and now I also see the standard LMDE mongodb-server package(s) available (though I've run apt-get upgrade a couple of times since I initially posted this).
I'm still confused about the relationship between LMDE versions/repos etc and Debian. I'm just running a plain-old vanilla install of LMDE here. I don't know what that "tracks" and that's part of what I'm trying to ask. If I cat /etc/debian_version I get "wheezy/sid." I've read something about wheezy becoming stable or something like that and I'm confused. If wheezy is "testing" and "sid" is "unstable," why "wheezy/sid"? Is it both? Neither? Some of each? I tried to ask in a debian IRC channel but they just barked "mint isn't debian!!11" I wasn't planning on running something that's supposed to be completely unstable, I just want an OS with relatively recent packages available.
On my debian server /etc/debian_version is "6.0.4," and when I installed the ec2 AMI it was labelled "squeeze."
The only changes I've made to my LMDE installation are that: I updated my sources.list as was recommended for UP4, added the 10gen repos for mongodb, added the frickelplatz repo for wine, updated apt/preferences so it wouldn't pull other stuff from frickelplatz, but other than that I'm trying to avoid doing anything unconventional.
From the way viking777 says he's "tracking testing," it sounds as if he's doing something non-standard and unrelated to my question, and that my vanilla install would be "latest." I see both of the words "testing" and "latest" in the sources.list described here:
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1949 , which is (basically) the sources.list that I'm using. Can someone explain if this is considered "latest" or "testing" and why both terms appear in the sources.list?
I've got another problem now, in that I'm running unison to sync files around. After another apt-get upgrade my desktop/laptop are running unison 2.40.63, but my debian server is still running unison version 2.32.52. Both systems are up to date. Unison does not allow syncing between different-version installations so I can't use unison until I can get this sorted out.
Is there any way to run an LMDE server? If so, how would I find an AMI for ec2? Or is there a way to make my desktop LMDE system better mimic the set of packages available on my debian 6.0.4 squeeze server? Or can I edit the sources.list on my (ec2) debian server so it uses a repo that's equivalent to whatever repos LMDE is using (I don't "LTS" kind of stability on the server)?
What exactly do I need to change in sources.list or elsewhere to do whatever I should be doing? I do like the mintmenu, the general direction, and other tweaks of LMDE, but I want to generally have the same version of programming languages, databases, and utilities on my servers as on my desktop/laptop. I'm ok with waiting a few weeks before doing a dist-upgrade if there's some short overlap period where debian and lmde will be out of sync, but I want to understand what exactly is necessary.
I was expecting this kind of compatibility to be possible based on the way this distro is described. Am I miss-understanding? Will I need to drop LMDE and run Debian on my desktop to get the level of compatibility I want?
I don't want to be constantly tweaking things... I want a distro that gets out of my way and lets me write code. I really don't like having to mess with sources.list and apt/preferences at all... especially not with the level of frequency I've been needing to do so lately, but I don't like recent versions of Ubuntu either and I'm willing to make a few tweaks to get what I want. I was expecting LMDE to be simpler and more user-friendly than Debian, but if I'm constantly managing package discrepancies then any savings in time/effort will be lost... plus I'm just quite confused. Suggestions?