The proposed-updates mechanism

All changes to the released, stable (and oldstable) distribution go through an extended testing period before they are accepted into the archive. Each such update of the stable (oldstable) release is called a point release.

Preparation of point releases is done through the proposed-updates mechanism. Updated packages are uploaded to a separate queue called p-u-new (o-p-u-new), before they are accepted in proposed-updates (oldstable-proposed-updates).

To use these packages with APT, you can add the following lines to your sources.list file:

  # proposed updates for the next point release
  deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian wheezy-proposed-updates main contrib non-free

Note that the /debian/ mirrors will have this, it is not necessary to use this particular one, the above choice of ftp.us.debian.org is just an example.

New packages can arrive into proposed-updates when Debian developers upload them either to proposed-updates (oldstable-proposed-updates), or to stable (oldstable). Debian's Stable Release Team regularly reviews the packages in p-u-new (o-p-u-new) and decide whether to accept or reject them.

It should be noted that packages from security.debian.org are copied into the p-u-new (o-p-u-new) directory automatically. At the same time, packages that are uploaded directly to proposed-updates (oldstable-proposed-updates) are not monitored by the Debian security team.

The current list of packages that are in the p-u-new (o-p-u-new) queue can be seen at http://release.debian.org/proposed-updates/stable.html (http://release.debian.org/proposed-updates/oldstable.html).

Before uploading a package to proposed-updates (oldstable-proposed-updates) it would be appreciated if one goes through the following checklist:

In case of doubt or questions, don't hesitate to contact the Stable Release Team, your case might always be an exception to the general rules of the above checklist!