Debian netinst CD with speakup

[Thomas Stivers]

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On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 07:05:03 AM -0400, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> The disk installs Sarge/testing, but Sarge is no longer testing, since 
> it was promoted to stable on June 6. Testing is now called something 
> else. So what do I get if I now do an install with that CD? Do I get 
> Sarge/stable? or the new testing? Will there be an opportunity to 
> specify which I want during the install? perhaps by dropping to a shell 
> prompt and editing something? I will be doing two more installations 
> later this week and hope to avoid surprises.

Short answer: If you have the 3.1r0a CD just install it and it'll work.

Long answer: I think the answer depends on exactly which revision of the
netinst-speakup cd you have. If you downloaded it a while back you might
have a copy that was for the testing ditribution, but if you have the
3.1r0a version then what you have is for stable. You can of course edit
/etc/apt/sources.list after you install and specify
stable/testing/unstable or sarge/etch/sid whichever you prefer. As an
interesting note, according to the debian top brass who are supposed to
know about these things, changing entries in /etc/apt/sources.list is
not the canonical way to choose which version you are running. I am not
completely clear on the details, but it looks like you can have all
three of stable, testing, and unstable listed in sources.list and then
choose the default release you want by putting the line
APT::Default-Release "stable"; in /etc/apt/apt.conf. This file will not
exist by default. I think this might be a good idea because it allows
you to run selected packages from testing or unstable while keeping the
bulk of your system running stable. It is rather an advanced option, so
as the saying goes "if you break it you get to keep all the pieces."

- -- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

Thomas Stivers	e-mail: stivers_t at tomass.dyndns.org
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