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This is my current sources.list, and I wish to install libjetty-java, libjetty-extra-java, and jetty, in that order. However, the packages are not found, and I resorted to downlaoding the debs from http://dist.codehaus.org/jetty/deb/ and fetching the dependencies viz. libslf4j-java libservlet2.5-java manually. 

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian    lenny           main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org          lenny/updates   main contrib non-free

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian    lenny       main contrib non-free
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/   lenny       main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/         lenny/updates   main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/     lenny/updates   main contrib non-free

My question is, is there a Debian repository for jetty? If not, will the above method be problematic in the long run? I ask, because I won't be eligible for automatic upgrades and the machine will be a production server.

Jeff Schaller
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theTuxRacer
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1 Answers1

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Jetty is in the Debian repositories, but at the moment only in the testing distribution, not in the stable distribution which is what you have.

It looks like jetty doesn't have many dependencies that are not in lenny (stable), so a viable option is to keep your lenny system, but install a few binary packages from squeeze (testing). This is viable only if the testing packages don't depend on having recent (post-stable) versions of libraries. In particular, native executables are usually out since they require upgrading the the C library.

Add squeeze repositories to your sources by putting these lines in a file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/squeeze.list:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free

Then you'll be able to install packages from squeeze. But don't stop there, otherwise the next time you run apt-get upgrade, your system will become (almost) all-testing.

Create a file /etc/apt/preferences containing the following lines:

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=testing
Pin-Priority: 200

Then packages from testing have a priority of 200, which is less than the default (500). So a package from testing will be installed only if there is no package with the same name in stable.

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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