proposed-updatesmechanism
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 etch-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://ftp-master.debian.org/proposed-updates.html (http://ftp-master.debian.org/oldstable-proposed-updates.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!