Is there a way to get apt-get to install from different distributions in one single command?

Question

I'm building a package from source in Debian Wheezy, which has a few build-deps that cannot be satisfied by stable. Therefore, I use a few packages from unstable, testing and wheezy-backports.

The best way to do these until now has been to combine the commands using "&&" and using the "-y" switch, like this:

apt-get -y -t testing install pkg1 && apt-get -y -t wheezy-backports install pkg2 && apt-get -y install pkg3

But this still makes apt-get read the package list and check for dependencies for every apt-get separated with "&&". My build-machine is quite slow, and every step takes a lot of time, and I hoped I could shave of a few minutes by saving the redundant package-list reading and dependency checking and get apt-get to do it all at once, something like this:

apt-get -t testing install pkg1, -t wheezy-backports install pkg2, install pkg3    

I haven't been able to find anything about the topic, and am not too optimistic, but maybe someone knows a way?

Answer 1

from man aptitude:

to select a particular version of the package, append "=" to the package name: for instance, "aptitude install apt=0.3.1". Similarly, to select a package from a particular archive, append "/" to the package name: for instance, "aptitude install apt/experimental".

so the solution to your problem is using aptitude (which i would recommend anyhow in favour of apt-get):

aptitude install pkg1/testing pkg2/wheezy-backports pkg3