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How safe is it to install these two packages?

root@dur:/home/thufir# 
root@dur:/home/thufir# tail /etc/apt/sources.list

## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party
## developers who want to ship their latest software.
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric main
# deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric multiverse restricted universe main



deb http://debian.nfgd.net/debian unstable main
root@dur:/home/thufir# 
root@dur:/home/thufir# aptitude search dbmail
p   dbmail                                - email storage server that supports SQL          
p   dbmail-mysql                          - MySQL module for dbmail                         
p   dbmail-pgsql                          - PostgreSQL module for dbmail                    
root@dur:/home/thufir# 
root@dur:/home/thufir# 
root@dur:/home/thufir# aptitude search libzdb
p   libzdb-dev                            - Zild Database Library development files         
p   libzdb7                               - Zild Database Library                           
p   libzdb8                               - Zild Database Library                           
root@dur:/home/thufir#

I'm installing zdlib-dev.

Community
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Thufir
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  • Not an exact duplicate, but the same applies: http://askubuntu.com/questions/35629/are-ppas-safe-to-add-to-my-system-and-what-are-some-red-flags-to-watch-out – Jorge Castro Aug 14 '12 at 13:35

1 Answers1

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The repository's name itself has the word unstable in it. So, there is a high possibility that it's going to be unstable. But, as izx points out in the comment that the unstable repo of debian is very much stable and that packages for all the non-LTS versions of Ubuntu are taken from it and that you can trust this repo

But generally speaking, if repositories (other than the Debian one mentioned above) have the word unstable in them, they are unstable. Now the reason why people have this, is so that other users can have bleeding edge software. Now these might have bugs and stuff too. Users contributing to the project can file bug reports, fixes for the bugs and so on and so forth. Hence, this is not advised for the average user.

So the choice is ultimately yours, whether you want use the super-bleeding edge of the software or once when the community is confident enough to push the software to stable when it feels the software/project is relatively free of bugs.

Nitin Venkatesh
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