Linux – How to install WebSphere 8.5 from Linux zipfile

Many people seem to be afraid of mixing stable with testing, but frankly, testing is fairly stable in its own right, and with proper preferences and solution checking, you can avoid the "stability drift" that puts your core packages on the unstable path.

"Testing is fairly stable??", you ask. Yes. In order for a package to migrate from unstable to testing, it has to have zero open bugs for 10 consecutive days. Chances are that, especially for the more popular packages, somebody is going to submit a bug report for an unstable version if something is wrong.

Even if you don't want to mix the environments, it's still nice to have the option there in case you run into something that requires a newer version than what is in stable.

Here's what I recommend for setting this up:

First, create the following files in /etc/apt/preferences.d:

stable.pref:

# 500 <= P < 990: causes a version to be installed unless there is a
# version available belonging to the target release or the installed
# version is more recent

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 900

testing.pref:

# 100 <= P < 500: causes a version to be installed unless there is a
# version available belonging to some other distribution or the installed
# version is more recent

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 400

unstable.pref:

# 0 < P < 100: causes a version to be installed only if there is no
# installed version of the package

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 50

experimental.pref:

# 0 < P < 100: causes a version to be installed only if there is no
# installed version of the package

Package: *
Pin: release a=experimental
Pin-Priority: 1

(Don't be afraid of the unstable/experimental stuff here. The priorities are low enough that it's never going to automatically install any of that stuff. Even the testing branch will behave, as it's only going to install the packages you want to be in testing.)

Now, creating a matching set for /etc/apt/sources.list.d:

stable.list: Copy from your original /etc/apt/sources.list. Rename the old file to something like sources.list.orig.

testing.list: Same as stable.list, except with testing.

unstable.list: Same as stable.list, except with unstable, and remove the security lists.

experimental.list: Same as unstable.list, except with experimental.

You can also add a oldstable in sources.lists.d and preferences.d (use a priority of 1), though this moniker will tend to expire and disappear before the next stable cycle. In cases like that, you can use http://archive.debian.org/debian/ and "hardcode" the Debian version (etch, lenny, etc.).

To install the testing version of a package, simply use aptitude install lib-foobar-package/testing, or just jump into aptitude's GUI and select the version inside of the package details (hit enter on the package you're looking at).

If you get complaints of package conflicts, look at the solutions first. In most cases, the first one is going to be "don't install this version". Learn to use the per-package accept/reject resolver choices. For example, if you're installing foobar-package/testing, and the first solution is "don't install foobar-package/testing", then mark that choice as rejected, and the other solutions will never veer to that path again. In cases like these, you'll probably have to install a few other testing packages.

If it's getting too hairy (like it's trying to upgrade libc or the kernel or some other huge core system), then you can either reject those upgrade paths or just back out of the initial upgrade altogether. Remember that it's only going to upgrade stuff to testing/unstable if you allow it to.

EDIT: Fixed some priority pins, and updated the list.

The standard for these issues is the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. It's a rather big document. Basically (and very roughly), the standard paths on Linux are:

• /bin & /sbin are for vital programs for the OS, sbin being for administrators only ;
• /usr/bin & /usr/sbin are for not vital programs, sbin being for administrators only ;
• /var is for living data for programs. It can be cache data, spool data, temporary data (unless it's in /tmp, which is wiped at every reboot), etc. ;
• /usr/local is for locally installed programs. Typically, it hosts programs that follow the standards but were not packaged for the OS, but rather installed manually by the administrator (using for example ./configure && make && make install) as well as administrator scripts ;
• /opt is for programs that are not packaged and don't follow the standards. You'd just put all the libraries there together with the program. It's often a quick & dirty solution, but it can also be used for programs that are made by yourself and for which you wish to have a specific path. You can make your own path (e.g. /opt/yourcompany) within it, and in this case you are encouraged to register it as part of the standard paths ;
• /etc should not contain programs, but rather configurations.

If your programs are specific to the services provided by the service, /srv can also be a good location for them. For example, I prefer to use /srv/www for websites rather than /var/www to make sure the directory will only contain data I added myself, and nothing that comes from software packages.

There are some differences between distributions. For example, RedHat systems use libexec directories when Debian/Ubuntu systems don't.

The FHS is mostly used by Linux distributions (I actually don't know any other OS that really complies to it). Other Unix systems don't follow it. For example, BSD systems tend to use /usr/local for packaged programs, which is not the case for Linux. Solaris has very different standard paths.

I strongly encourage you to read the FHS document I linked above if you wish to know more about this.