installing port from universe

[Mario Vukelic]

On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 18:42 -0700, Noah wrote:
> Okay so I end up with version 1.1.5 which is not the version I want to
> run.  I wish to install an older version of rdiff-backup  rdiff-backup
> (0.13.4-3ubuntu1)
> 
> # rdiff-backup -V
> rdiff-backup 1.1.5
> 
> how do I install older versions? 

Ah, I saw now you posted another question in a different thread. Sorry,
I was not aware of that earlier.

First, are you positive that you need the same exact version on client
and server? I have no experience with rdiff-backup, so I wouldn't know.

If several versions are available in the repositories, you can specify a
specific one on the aptitude command line:

aptitude install rdiff-backup=0.13.4-3ubuntu1

(Instead of =, you can also use <, >, <=, >=, and possibly other version
specifiers. See the README I mentioned)

However, this can only work if the desired version is available in the
dapper repositories that you have in sources.list. If it is not, I can
think of 3 options:

First, you can simply go to
http://packages.ubuntu.com/breezy/utils/rdiff-backup and download the
binary deb from there. 
It might be possible to simply install it from a terminal with "sudo
dpkg -i <filename>", or I think in Dapper you can also simply
doubleclick it to install.
Of course, on the next upgrade, the package manager will try to upgrade
it to the version that exists in dapper. To prevent this, you can "hold"
the package:
aptitude hold <packagename>

If the direct installation of the breezy binary package works, there is
a second, cleaner option than the one-time installation I have just
described: to "pin" the package. You would add the breezy repositories
to sources list, and then use apt-pinning to specify that only the
rdiff-backup package is to be used from breezy, while the rest of your
packages shall continue to come from dapper. This is a bit more
complicated, but ensures that you will continue to receive security
updates for rdiff-backup from the breezy-repositories (at least as long
as breezy is still supported security-wise .. I think it must be very
near to the end of support)
Read about apt-pinning here
http://wiki.debian.org/AptPinning
http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

Third, if the installation of the breezy binary package (as in options
one and two) on dapper fails due to dependency issues, you will have to
recompile the breezy package on dapper:

Read
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-sourcehandling.en.html

It tells you to do a "apt-get source <packagename>", but this requires
the breezy repositories in sources.list. For a one-time compile I find
it easier to go to http://packages.ubuntu.com/breezy/utils/rdiff-backup
and download all the files from there:

Source Package: rdiff-backup, Download: [dsc]
[rdiff-backup_0.13.4.orig.tar.gz] [rdiff-backup_0.13.4-3ubuntu1.diff.gz]

This command unpacks the package into a directory:
dpkg -x <dsc-file>

Then change into the newly created directory:
cd <dir>

Then create the binary:
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

And install the resulting deb:
sudo dpkg -i <packagefile.deb>

If the compiling does not work, read chapter 6.2 of the apt-howto linked
above