Q: Where shall I report bugs I found in packages from backports to?

A: Please report them to the backports-users mailinglist. The Debian bugtracking system doesn’t know anything about backports versions, and sometimes the backporter isn’t in the Debian packaging team so they might miss the report.

Q: When will the $arch build of $package be available?

A: The packages are only uploaded by the backporter for their own architecture. The rest of the architectures have to go through the build network and the logs getting signed by the buildd admins. Those are often enough also busy with other work (or if time permits real life), which might also add to a delay in the uploads. You can check the status on the Buildd Information Page of the used buildd network, just enter your $package and don’t forget to select the lenny-backports suite from the dropdown list.

Q: I have troubles installing $package because of strange dependencies...

A: This is most of the times rooted in the above mentioned delay in getting packages built for all architectures. The architecture independent packages are available right from the start (because they are included in the original upload) but the architecture depending packages need a bit until they make it into the pool. Please check the status on the Buildd Information Page of the used buildd network, just enter your $package and don’t forget to select the lenny-backports suite from the dropdown list wether this is the cause of your upgrade/install problems.

Q: What about dist-upgrade from sarge-backports to etch?

A: In general, backports.org only has backports made from testing but with reduced version numbers (apt considers ~ lower than -), therefore the upgrade path from sarge-backports to etch is saved. However, there are a few backports only which are made from unstable (security updates and the following exceptions: firefox, kernel, openoffice.org, xorg).

If you do not use one of these exceptions, you can safely upgrade to etch. If you use one of these exceptions, set the pin-priority (see man apt_preferences) temporarily to 1001 for all packages from etch, and you should be able to do a safe dist-upgrade too.

Q: Is there security support for packages from backports.org?

A: Unfortunately not. This is done on a best effort basis by the people who track the package, usually the ones who originally did upload the package into backports. When security related bugs are fixed in Debian unstable the backporter is permitted to upload the package from directly there instead of having to wait until the fix hits testing. You can see the open issues for lenny-backports and etch-backports in the security tracker (though there may be false positives too, the version compare isn’t perfect yet)