• Most up-to-date Repositories?
    7 replies, posted
Does anyone know what the most up-to-date repositories are for debian/ubuntu/mint? I'm tired of Synaptic always offering me old versions of software. Firefox, Gimp, gParted, they are all a version or two behind, and I can't find .deb packages of the latest releases anywhere. Anyone have more up-to-date repos?
Add 'unstable' sources to your sources.list file. That should allow you to install packages that are still in the "testing compatibility" stage of release.
That sounds great, I'll use that. :) Thank you. But are there the latest stable releases in there as well? Because it's the stable releases that I'm searching, but betas are okay too.
I mean, you may want to try changing around your sources to a different server, maybe there's a list of those around somewhere or something, I don't know since I don't use apt-get. But the download repositories should just be mirrors of each other. You are already pulling packages from the stable branch, so I don't think you are going to find the bleeding-edge packages in the stable branch. You could also add the source repositories to the sources file. Like so: [URL="http://www.webupd8.org/2009/06/firefox-35-rc-1-ubuntu-repository-deb.html"]http://www.webupd8.org/2009/06/firefox-35-rc-1-ubuntu-repository-deb.html[/URL]
Gentoo.
[QUOTE=Pixel Heart;19846245]But are there the latest stable releases in there as well? Because it's the stable releases that I'm searching, but betas are okay too.[/QUOTE] The packages in Debian's "unstable" branch are generally stable upstream releases, not betas. The "unstable" comes from the fact that the packages haven't gone through Debian's testing and release process, and that they change regularly (as new upstream versions of programs are released). If you're thinking about switching to unstable to get newer packages, remember that its main role is that of a work area for Debian developers, and people using it are expected to be able to fend for themselves. It's usable as a day-to-day desktop system -- I've been using it for about nine years now -- and oftentimes it's fine, but occasionally things break and you'll need to do some troubleshooting and head-scratching in order to fix them. (This can be daunting, but it's also a good way to gain experience.) In my experience, the problems that arise are usually related to packaging and dependencies -- Debian-specific stuff -- rather than bugs in upstream software. Example: a few days ago, aptitude wanted to remove basically all of GNOME from my system because of a dependency problem. I didn't investigate closely but the root cause seemed to be related to Python and a plugin for the GEdit text editor; a newer version of one package had gone into the repository but the corresponding newer version of another package wasn't yet available, and the two packages (one new, one old) were not compatible so aptitude had to mark things for removal to avoid a conflict. I had to do some manual fiddling in aptitude for a few days to hold back the affected packages while letting other (unrelated) upgrades go through. Yesterday the problem was resolved (I guess the newer version of that other package got uploaded to the repository) and I was able to upgrade everything without problems. Another example: awhile back (six months to a year ago IIRC) there was, for a few days, a bug in mkinitramfs (a program that produces an essential file needed for booting) that caused it to produce broken initrd files. The problem was fixed quickly, but I had happened to install a new kernel during the few days while it was broken, which caused my initrd file to be regenerated with the broken mkinitramfs. A few days later when I rebooted (to run the new kernel I'd installed) I was surprised to find that my machine wouldn't boot. To fix it I had to boot a liveCD, mount and chroot into my installed system, and manually re-run mkinitramfs (fortunately the fixed version was installed already). In short, although the individual programs are generally not betas, think of unstable as being a beta version of Debian. If you're comfortable with occasional troubleshooting, give it a try, but if you'd rather your system "just work", stick with stable releases, where avoiding breakage is the top priority.
Arch's repos are packed with the very latest stable releases :buddy:
I once had in issue where apt decided it would remove every GNU package while I was sleeping. So pretty much all I was left with was zsh and a few games.
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