|> What I am trying to do is install the latest version of the sawfish |> window manager. It resides in the unstable section. The problem is |> that I want to install only what is required from the unstable base. I |> tried pressing "R" and "D" so that only the packages I selected would be |> installed, but I got a ton of dependencies. |> |> what is the best way for me to do this?
I believe that the way that gives the best combination of safety and convenience is to use: apt-get --compile source sawfish This will download the source-files and compile the package. I'm afraid I don't know if it handles dependencies, but if you look at http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/sawfish.html you'll get a complete list of packages that sawfish depends on and suggests. For this to work, you need to have in /etc/apt/sources.list (along with your usual sources for the binary packages) a line like the following: deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian unstable main (assuming that the package you want is in the main section of the unstable distribution and that http.us.debian.org is the mirror closest to you) Then `apt-get update' and `apt-get --compile source sawfish'. The advantage of this is that the program will be compiled against the libraries that currently exist on your system. If you try to install the binary package from unstable, there is a good chance that it will have been compiled against libraries that are newer than (and incompatible with) the libraries that exist on your system. Hope this helps, Jim
