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My plan is like this:

Say I'm running 12.04 LTS, life is good, but its packages guadually become old. Then 12.10 is out, I add a deb-src line in my sources.list, and backport (download source, build, install) selected packages from the new release. Since the new release is supported, I should get security updates, on which case I will backport the updated versions. The system is still stable, and I get the new packages that I want, even with security updates (which I don't get if I go the Debian route and backport from testing).

Now the questions:

  1. Is this plan as good as I think it is? I think it's the best I can get if I want maximum stability and security on the condition that I get these new packages I absolutely need. Right? Wrong?

  2. If it's a good plan, how to do it in practice? In an ideal world, I think I should be able to just apt-get install something, and if the version with the highest priority comes from a deb line, install the package; if it comes from a deb-src line, download source, build, and install. But apparently the reality isn't so rosy, not only do I have to do extra work building and installing a source package, but I also cannot find a way to tell when there is a new version of the package from that repository! When I do apt-cache policy something, only the deb lines are listed. Why are source repositories discriminated against? How can I track a source repository and install upgrades as they come out?

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  • apt-cache showsrc is the source equivalent of apt-get policy, I suppose. At least I don't know of one closer. And building backports is perfectly reasonable. See my question/answer on unix.sx. As how to know when there is more recent source package available, that is a good question. I don't have an answer, but would be interested in one. I imagine you could program a tool in python or perl or whatever using the APT api without too much trouble, though. Mar 5, 2014 at 15:27
  • This question is about 12.04 which is EOL. Arguably one could apply it to newer versions but the OP seems to have lost interest in this question posted 5+ years ago as he did not reply to comments posted in March 2014. VTC as not reproducible in lieu of abandoned question which isn't an option. Jul 22, 2017 at 22:29

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