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I wish to use a newer version of a package than is available in the current stable Debian distribution. An alternative to installing from source (or a package made from source) is to use Debian backports.

How often does the version of a package on backports change? Can I rely on it being available in the medium to long term?

For example apt policy shows:

$ apt policy libprotobuf-dev
libprotobuf-dev:
  Installed: 3.6.1-4~bpo9+1
  Candidate: 3.6.1-4~bpo9+1
  Version table:
 *** 3.6.1-4~bpo9+1 100
        100 http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch-backports/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0.0-9 500
        500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main amd64 Packages

I would be happy to use 3.6.1. What guarantees are there that this will continue to be available from the backports repository rather than being replaced with say 3.7 or something more recent?

Is there an official Debian policy on this? E.g. newer backports versions can be added but existing ones will only be replaced if there are bug or security fixes?

This question suggests that packages do get removed from backports but that they may subsequently be available via http://snapshot.debian.org/ See also https://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2017/07/17/how-to-install-packages-using-repository-snapshot/ that adds some reassurance but does not answer the question.

Bruce Adams
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  • AFAIK backports stay on the version number from the release they were backported from. That may occasionally change if it was from testing and is pretty much guaranteed to change if the backport was from sid. – Michael Hampton Feb 27 '19 at 13:08

0 Answers0