[sf-lug] external usb hard drive

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Kleider (a_kleider at yahoo.com):

> I was hoping I could use stable and on a case by case basis add what 
> I need/want (I expect there won't be much.)
> Is that completely unrealistic?

Yes and no.  

1.  You shouldn't try pulling binary packages from testing/unstable onto
a Debian-stable system.  That is a classic error and can screw up your
system very badly.  Not to put too fine a point on it, that is one of
the biggest reasons I included
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2008-February/003877.html
in my immediately preceding post.  I didn't do that just for typing
practice:  I recommend you read it.

2.  You can use "backports" collections of binary packages, which can
help in some cases, albeit (1) there are things backports cannot fix,
such as making a cutting-edge FUSE filesystem driver work properly with
a trailing-edge Debian-stable kernel version that has poorly developed
FUSE capabilities[1], and (2) you'll have to bear in mind that the
various backported packages aren't guaranteed to be either compatible
with each other or to comply with Debian quality and policy standards.

3.  Alternatively, you could add only deb-src lines from testing and/or
unstable to /etc/apt/sources.list, and compile your own Debianised
binary software from Debian source packages, linking them against
existing Debian-stable libraries.  (This amounts to doing your own
backports.)  This at least would be more more likely to give
satisfactory results than the other two options -- but, by the time you
get through all that trouble, it'd be smarter to just switch to the
testing/unstable branches and have done with it.

[1] Not to put too fine a point on it, that is one of the biggest
reasons I included http://www.debianhelp.org/node/8346 in my earlier 
post -- which among other things would have told you why your backports
approach isn't going to be sufficient in this case.