[conspire] How to update packages when Deb is behind?

[Paul Zander]

Having gotten my computer to a stable mode, I am reviewing the long string of emails to clarify details.  I need to say that the word “stable” is overloaded.  It is “stable” in the sense of “not thrashing”. Not to be confused with Debian-stable.  It is really Debian-testing, aka Buster.

Quoting Rick Moen at Jun 20 at 11:29 AM
>  I strongly
> suspect, upon examination, that the site does not actually need anything
> but a pretty generic Web browser, but the weenie in charge has caused a
> bit of Javascript code to query your browser and compare the reported
> User-Agent string against a list of what the weenie considers suitable.

> There are at least two good use-cases I can think of, for altering a
> browser's User-Agent string.  The first is to sidestep the
> aforementioned weenies.  The second is (if you wish) to declare yours to
 > be the browser of a mobile device, so that you get served the
> mobile-optimised site content rather than the regular content.

With hindsight, wish I hadn’t installed the latest firefox-esr so I could add the code to over-write the User-Agent string.  However, by this time, I had already brought the computer up to the current Debian-testing and there was not easy way to go back.

As a related item, I have long used NoScript to reduce the traffic to 3rd party websites.  However recently I am encountering more and more sites that link to a dozen or more others.  It gets to be a hassle to figure out what I need to temporarily allow.  

> The downside of Debian-stable is that the software versions are... old.  

Which is why I have been using Debian-testing.  But I was impatient and neglected to emphasis this.

Quoting Rick Moen at Jun 20 at 11:31 AM
> Oh, I forgot to mention the _other_ halfway measure;  Debian backports.

So, something I might do is change /etc/apt/sources.list to replace testing to buster.  At a later date when buster is released, edit the file to replace buster with stable.  And after that consider if backports will get some updated package I am dying to have.

Quoting Rick Moen at  Jun 20 at 11:33 PM
> Look at the contents of /etc/issue, for starters.

/etc/issue is indeed written by apt-get to reflect what was done.
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