Official Debian backports page: backports.debian.org
To enable backports in Debian (Lenny, Squeeze):
a) Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following line:
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports lenny-backports main
Note. After Squeeze was released, the correct value is no longer "lenny-backports" but "lenny-backports-sloppy".
b) Reload the package list:
# aptitude update
Now the aptitude search command can see the backports of the latest versions available for installation, but aptitude safe-upgrade still won't update system components from backports.
c) Open (or create, if it doesn't exist) the /etc/apt/preferences file and add the following information to it:
# APT PINNING PREFERENCES
Package: *
Pin: release a=lenny-backports
Pin-Priority: 200
Now, if a package was installed from backports, it will keep getting updated from there, but if the package is the regular version, it won't automatically switch to the backports version — instead it will keep being updated from the standard Debian repositories until it's manually reinstalled with the backports version.
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