[Tfug] backporting packages with Woody

[Scott Denlinger]

My sense is that most people on this list who are using Debian are
running either Sarge or Sid, but for those of you who run Woody, have
you had any experience with the backported packages available from
www.backports.org? Up until now when I've wanted the newest versions of
packages I've just installed them from source in /usr/local, but the
list of packages I've done this with is getting longer and longer, and
it would be nice to get these more integrated into the Woody package
database so apt-get and dselect plays more nicely with my system.

Since I recently discovered the backports web site, it seems like I now
have two ways to do this: either try to figure out how to create .debs
from source packages and install them using apt and keeping them in a
local repository, or using the backports site in my sources.list file.

Have others had good experiences using the backported .debs from the
backports site?

Is there a nice tutorial or site out there that shows one how to
integrate software installed from source packages into the apt system? I've looked at the APT howto,
and several other .deb creation sites, but that route represents a
pretty steep learning curve for me at this point. For what it's worth,
this would be a *great* topic for a Thursday night session in case some
of the more advanced Debian users among us would like an opportunity to
teach the newer users how to make APT more powerful

Thanks.

Scott Denlinger
scott at scottdenlinger.com