sources sources everywhere

[William Tasso]

Greetings One & All

Trying to get a thorough understanding of the runes in
/etc/apt/sources.list

I've inherited a network containing a few ubuntu servers, all containing
different source configurations. Attempting to sanitise the muddle has
prompted a few questions ....

o What is the significance of "main restricted " as opposed to "main"?

o Does ubuntu have the debian concept of stable/testing/unstable or does
it just use the release names?

o How do I find out if a ubuntu server has already installed a package
from universe or multiverse?

Finally, is there any point in specifying more than one mirror e.g.

deb [url]http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu[/url] breezy main restricted
deb [url]http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu[/url] breezy main restricted

Thanks for reading.
--
William Tasso

[Florian Diesch]

"William Tasso" <spamblocked@tbdata.com> writes:

> o What is the significance of "main restricted " as opposed to "main"?

"main restricted" means "main and restricted"

restricted is something like Debian's non-free

> o Does ubuntu have the debian concept of stable/testing/unstable or
> does it just use the release names?

just the release names

> o How do I find out if a ubuntu server has already installed a package
> from universe or multiverse?

dpkg --get-selections |awk '/install$/ {print $1}'| \
xargs apt-cache show | grep '^Filename: pool/universe'


Maybe there's something better...

> Finally, is there any point in specifying more than one mirror e.g.
>
> deb [url]http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu[/url] breezy main restricted
> deb [url]http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu[/url] breezy main restricted

apt tries the mirrors in the specified order. Thus it may be useful if
your preferred mirror isn't complete or is offline



Florian
--
Das toitsche Usenet ist die Wiederaufführung des Dreißigjährigen Krieges mit
den Mitteln einer Talkshow. [Alexander Bartolich in dcpu]

[Swild]

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:42:48 +0000, William Tasso wrote:

> Greetings One & All
>
> Trying to get a thorough understanding of the runes in
> /etc/apt/sources.list
>
> I've inherited a network containing a few ubuntu servers, all containing
> different source configurations. Attempting to sanitise the muddle has
> prompted a few questions ....
>
> o What is the significance of "main restricted " as opposed to "main"?

That's referring to two separate items. "Main" refers to the main
supported packages, and "restricted" refers to restricted
copyright packages.

>
> o Does ubuntu have the debian concept of stable/testing/unstable or does
> it just use the release names?

Just the release names.

>
> o How do I find out if a ubuntu server has already installed a package
> from universe or multiverse?

If you use Synaptic and search for the package, it will indicate if the
package is installed.

>
> Finally, is there any point in specifying more than one mirror e.g.
>
> deb [url]http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu[/url] breezy main restricted deb
> [url]http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu[/url] breezy main restricted

You only need one mirror for each repository, but it doesn't hurt to have
another handy if a mirror goes down. I would comment out the extra
repository to save time when updating the repositories.