? Mixed listings for packages from backports

[Member stevesr0]

Hi,

I am running a full antiX version of the current stable. Tonight after a long interval without updating, I performed a “apt update && apt full-upgrade”.

No problem.

Then, because I was curious about the version of pipewire packages in stable, I started aptitude and searched.

Curiously, five of the pipewire packages (libpipewire-0.3-common, pipewire-alsa, pipewire-pulse, pipewire-jack and pipewire-v4l2) are 0.3.63 versions from bullseye-backports, while all the rest are the 0.3.19 version from stable.

None of these are installed. While I might try installing the 0.3.63 packages if possible from the backports, I am just puzzled that some of the packages are coming from the stable repo and others are coming from the backports.

stevesr0

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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As you have probably heard many times, Debian Stable has been historically slow to include current software. The solutions are to use Testing or Sid, but a safer alternative is to use stable packages that have not cleared the stable repo but are available as backports.

Translate Backports to refer to released versions of stable software that are not yet included in Debian Stable. When I run Debian Stable, the longer the age of Stable the percentage of Backports increase until they are approved in Stable. So it is there to work around very long backlog and backlog is thus handled with Backports!

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Brian Masinick

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi The Mas,

I understand the purpose of backports (and approve <g>). I am puzzled that some of the packages in backports were selected while other Pipewire related packages were selected (automagically) from the stable repo.

I figured it should be all or none…

stevesr0

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Let’s face it, neither Stable nor Backports are optimal, they are behind the release curve. Stable software that works fine is out there and available. Sid comes closest to getting it but the dependent software is sometimes a problem there.

Siduction and Endeavour OS do a pretty good job in handling new stable software and so does PCLinuxOS. Let’s face it, Debian is great stable server software but it’s also overly conservative for personal systems.

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Brian Masinick

[Member Xunzi_23]

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With regards to debian stable , depends on use case, if a person wants to always
have latest software arch or arch based is best option.

For some friends I setup stable with all the latest software they need for the use
case they presented me with.
Conservative is the best option for new users, they need to feel and be sure of getting
home office work done although in many cases scared of leaving erhem “comfy windoze”.

For playing I would extend the list of distros, include sparky on debian based, and put
Arch at number one. It is easy to install by converting something like manjaro. AUR is
awesome for obscure latest software wishes as is the highly knowlegable community.

Like sid Arch can be tricky when major changes occur, otherwise tin hats generaly not needed.

[Moderator caprea]

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Hi Stevesr0, I’m also interested how that works and I hope someone can give a really insightful explanation for this.
On the packages.debian.org side one can see, not every package from pipewire stuff is available in eg stable(bullseye).
https://packages.debian.org/search?lang=en&keywords=pipewire

If I now first try to install pipewire-jack (only available in bullseye-backports, bookworm, sid) with synaptic, where it is available, on my antiX21 stable it installs a lot from backports or upgrades to. See screenshot, too.

Die folgenden Pakete wurden aktualisiert:
libpipewire-0.3-0 (0.3.19-4) to 0.3.63-1~bpo11+1
libspa-0.2-modules (0.3.19-4) to 0.3.63-1~bpo11+1

Die folgenden Pakete wurden installiert:
libpipewire-0.3-modules (0.3.63-1~bpo11+1)
pipewire (0.3.63-1~bpo11+1)
pipewire-alsa (0.3.63-1~bpo11+1)
pipewire-bin (0.3.63-1~bpo11+1)
pipewire-jack (0.3.63-1~bpo11+1)

Even more strange, if I do the same with terminal first,it says no,there are depency problems.Afterwards synaptic does not want to install it anymore, too.

$ LANG=C sudo apt install pipewire-jack -s
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 pipewire-jack : Depends: pipewire (= 0.3.63-1~bpo11+1) but 0.3.19-4 is to be installed
                 Depends: libpipewire-0.3-0 (= 0.3.63-1~bpo11+1) but 0.3.19-4 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Why are the backports packages in stock in synaptic if opened first,is this normal behaviour?

Edit: Trying to reproduce this, it seems synaptic sometimes installs the package and sometimes says package not in stock.Is my system somehow corrupted?

OK. on another antiX install, if typing pipewire in the search field of synaptic one can easily see which packages come from backports, some can be installed without problems some not.Whereas with apt from terminal they can not.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by caprea.
• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by caprea.

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   pipewire-jack-1.png
   

[Forum Admin dolphin_oracle]

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unless there is some configuration change made in antiX of which I’m not aware, when packages are in both stable and backports, you need to specify backports explicitly to get them.

sudo apt install -t bullseye-backports $PACKAGES

if packages don’t exist in both, I could see backports packages getting pulled in without the -t switch.

one can see where packages are coming from at the terminal a few ways, my favorite being.

apt policy $PACKAGES

which will show you not only what version will be installed by default, but what versions are available in the configured repos.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by dolphin_oracle.

[Moderator caprea]

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@dolphin_oracle, yes and this is pretty good working with apt from terminal.I come into doubt with the synaptic.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Xunzi_23 wrote:

With regards to debian stable , depends on use case, if a person wants to always
have latest software arch or arch based is best option.

For some friends I setup stable with all the latest software they need for the use
case they presented me with.
Conservative is the best option for new users, they need to feel and be sure of getting
home office work done although in many cases scared of leaving erhem “comfy windoze”.

For playing I would extend the list of distros, include sparky on Debian based, and put
Arch at number one. It is easy to install by converting something like Manjaro. AUR is
awesome for obscure latest software wishes as is the highly knowledgeable community.

Like Sid, Arch can be tricky when major changes occur, otherwise tin hats generally not needed.

Yeah, I agree with you. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve had pretty good success with several other distributions when I want to chase “newer” software.

Siduction is the latest in a generation of Debian Sid based distributions beginning with Kanotix, then Sidux, then aptosid, and now Siduction, which has already been around for approximately a decade +.

Endeavour OS is an Arch Linux based distribution that, like Siduction, is a cutting edge distribution, except it’s Arch based instead of Debian Sid based. What they both have in common is that they have some really solid packaging and development tools, some really bright engineers who are able to keep their software working well the majority of the time, in spite of near constant change.

Of course, no software is completely perfect; you still have to be aware of what’s changing, and in a few rare cases you either have to fix something, or in an ultra bad (but also extremely rare) scenario, you may have to either recover from a backup or reinstall; I’ve not had to do that with either of them in the past several years and not more than one or two times in their entire history, so considering the hundreds of thousands of changes over the years, that’s a pretty good track record for these distributions.

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Brian Masinick

[Member stevesr0]

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dolphin_oracle nailed it.

The packages that would be pulled in from backports without using the apt install -t switch all had ONLY backports versions.

And now I understand better how to specify installing of backports packages.

I guess the other way is to specify the version?

stevesr0

(Please mark this solved.)

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