APT preferences & debian-pinning [Solved]

[DukeComposed]

It should be noted that apt-upgrade will only install updates that don't remove other packages or that don't install additional packages.

So if you used apt upgrade instead of apt full-upgrade, you won't pull in any new mx tools that are added in the course of the life of the release, nor will it install any upgraded packages that need new libraries /dependencies

I'm OK with that.

[SilverX]

Sorry for late reply.

What stood out to me is the statement "MX broke on me few times on pretty much fresh install while doing full apt upgrade" which means running an "apt full-upgrade"/"apt-get dist-upgrade" and hoping for the best. From man apt-get(8), which of course we all have memorized:

- Well, yes, basically.

Actually, MX broke on me few times on pretty much fresh install while doing full apt upgrade with +300 upgradable packages, with zero involvment from my side, nor even touching repos.

So how many 3trd party, or ubuntu-like "foreign" deb-package have you installed, before the system broke?
Note: Even one innocent looking package, which even may work for a while, can cause a system to break - suddenly - after a big system upgrade.

- Not really a frankendebian in my opinion, as long as it's stable, and performs well, while always being able to upgrade or downgrade most packages (most as few i compiled manually by hand as a optimal solution before fully automatic source build script is in place.
At this point (after dozen fails and months of work and tests), my distro is at peak stability a debian could be, few source built, and few other packages from sid / trixie, had so far no issues at all, it simply does what it's meant to do, and everything works and performs well, even under drastic conditions in stress tests. So far, not a single package broke since I implemented previously mentioned configs.
Stress tests included (but not limited to):
- Reinstalling same package, on same, and different version from different repo
- Downgrading packages and their dependencies significantly (by many versions)
- Upgrading everything (except glibc6*) to both testing and unstable if available.
So far, nothing even scratched it, worst issue so far i had with configs getting overriden by new version (which is not an actual issue at all, i just remade my configs properly, and it was and still is like nothing special ever happened)
Well, I had my fair share of making a broken hybrid system only by my own actions, Id say I've broke it in every possible way already. That's why Im confident in what I believe.
I might've not explained myself well, let me clarify what I mean by all that.
- Mx broke on me in those very rare and specific cases @DukeComposed explained, which is pretty much user error in less than optimal conditions. (Which is not reccomended, but does eventually happen one way or another)
MX Is very stable and super reliable, especially compared to some other debians, and MX repos are great! There is nothing wrong particularly with MX, don't get me wrong, as I agree MX Is exceptionally well designed!

What im trying to say, is Debian, is inherently created with few very specific, but oddly common ways average user can break his system, and while we all learned how to operate apt correctly, many users (I'd even say most), are not always familliar with complete works, functionality and every little detail of their system, like we do.
Believe me or not, but most Linux users are regular people, who are just fine with some basic knowledge they have to operate in day to day life.

What Im trying to do is make people realize adding just a few well thought out lines of config, you can instantly improve the actual linux debian experience for tousands of people, while not really changing anything, and having zero downsides, (there is no difference for you if you use apt the reccomended way anyway, while silently protecting you from consequences of silly mistakes and unholy experiments) There is zero difference if you don't have repos like trixie / sid added while configured in preferences file, so apart from ideological reasons, there are no reasonable arguments against going a bit out of our ways, just to include something that not everyone might use or even realize exist in everyday use. But something that has no downsides, is totalled to ~50 lines of text, (2kb), while providing significant improvements for many people,
from everyone who wanted to see what are those other debian repos all about, to everyone making simple user error (which is guaranteed to happen to everyone at least once), to people straight out doing things strictly forbidden in Debian bible.

I don't see any logical reason someone might not want to include something like that, just for the sake of regular everyday users, so someone's future silly mistake or mishap might not end up destroying their systyems in one way or another.
I mean, with preferences configured, you naturally still can kill any debian by forcing criticals to update from specific repo, and / or specific version, but that is not something you can ever do by accident, misfortune or curiosity, you have to be really specific to do any harm to a Debian.
(And while I said both MX, and Debian, I simply mean all Debians, as we all use same apt, with same rules, logic behind it, and mostly same repos. When I specifically mentioned that MX broke on me in that specific situation, I meant more like "Even as flawless and well designed system as MX, Is not immune to, as its something all debian based distros inhered day they were born")

You know what? Funny enough, but Linus Torvalds once said, he doesnt use Debian, because it is too confusing for him.
I think I understood what he meant by that.

[DukeComposed]

Funny enough, but Linus Torvalds once said, he doesnt use Debian, because it is too confusing for him.
I think I understood what he meant by that.

Linus doesn't use Debian because Fedora once let him change the time zone setting without needing the root password. Now he steadfastly refuses to learn a different OS because it would be more work than sticking with what he knows, and that includes having to give free tech support to his family. He's been pretty clear about this in the Q&As he's given.

[asqwerth]

It should be noted that apt-upgrade will only install updates that don't remove other packages or that don't install additional packages.

So if you used apt upgrade instead of apt full-upgrade, you won't pull in any new mx tools that are added in the course of the life of the release, nor will it install any upgraded packages that need new libraries /dependencies

I'm OK with that.

It's fine if you are ok with that. My point is that the dist-upgrade and full-upgrade commands are not simply for the purposes of upgrading to a new distro release of Debian after you change the repo sources. It's for more than that even if you stick to the default Debian and MX repos.

The apt full-upgrade command is default for MX-updater because new MX tools and other tweaks or patches are sometimes added, and also because MX backports of newer versions of packages may find its way into the main repos after some testing, and these newer versions sometimes require additional dependencies to be installed as well.