Openbox for Debian 5 or 6?

[kcredden]

Hey folks: Been over to the Openbox web site. They have a .DEB file for the newest Openbox, but I'm a bit confused. Does anyone know if the Ubuntu .DEB will work with Debian 5 or 6? Or do I need the source code version?

Thanks

[cynwulf]

Can you provide a link to where you downloaded this .deb I can only see source downloads on the openbox site.

In general it's not advisable to install .debs you download from outside the repositories and certainly not 'buntu .debs as, desipite using the same package management tools, Debian is not binary compatible with 'buntu.

If you want openbox 3.5.0 one option would be to upgrade to testing. If you want to remain with stable, then you can try backporting openbox from testing/unstable or just building it from upstream source.

[nixblog]

I would go with a Debian Squeeze 6 install and then change to the "Testing" repo's. Once you refresh the repositories via apt, you will be able to install Openbox 3.5

I have used Ubuntu PPA repo's to install software in Debian Testing, such as Firefox, Thunderbird and other stuff too - all without issues. But, I like living dangerously now and again

[cynwulf]

I would go with a Debian Squeeze 6 install and then change to the "Testing" repo's. Once you refresh the repositories via apt, you will be able to install Openbox 3.5

Mixing testing/unstable/experimimental and stable is a bad idea. If you have to ask why then you probably shouldn't be dioing it.

I have used Ubuntu PPA repo's to install software in Debian Testing, such as Firefox, Thunderbird and other stuff too - all without issues. But, I like living dangerously now and again

Another very bad idea, I would not recommend this to my worst enemy. PPA's are not only completely untrustworthy sources but also binary incompatible with Debian.

Both of your methods will lead to dependency issues, broken packages and quite possibly an unusable system.

Newer versions of iceweasel are available here:

Debian Mozilla team APT archive

Or from backports.

[nixblog]

Mixing testing/unstable/experimimental and stable is a bad idea. If you have to ask why then you probably shouldn't be dioing it.

Who said anything about mixing squeeze/testing?

Perhap's what I said wasn't clear enough. I meant you could install Squeeze then upgrade repo's to testing and then upgrade to testing/Wheezy. Alternatively you could download a testing build from Debian in order to not go though the Squeeze/Wheezy upgrade routine

Another very bad idea, I would not recommend this to my worst enemy. PPA's are not only completely untrustworthy sources but also binary incompatible with Debian.

Both of your methods will lead to dependency issues, broken packages and quite possibly an unusable system.

Newer versions of iceweasel are available here:

Debian Mozilla team APT archive

Or from backports.

As I say, I would not recommend it either normally but it can and does work better than using backports etc sometimes. I gave up on updating Icedove via Mozilla apt archive as there was dependency issues (in December) that no one seemed bothered about - it may be fixed now though.

BTW, I've had a system running for about a year using PPA's, pinning and compiled packages and it's been as stable as any Debian system I've built.