To enable the proposed archive for karmic go to System -> Administration -> Software sources and tick the karmic-proposed box under the updates tab.

• Click to zoom

Or you can modify the software sources manually by adding the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-proposed restricted main multiverse universe

Replace "karmic" with "jaunty" or "intrepid" or "hardy" depending on which release you are on.

Selective upgrading from -proposed

Create the file /etc/apt/preferences with this content:

Package: *
Pin: release a=karmic-security
Pin-Priority: 990

Package: *
Pin: release a=karmic-updates
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release a=karmic-proposed
Pin-Priority: 400

You can then start aptitude to select the -proposed packages you want to upgrade with

sudo aptitude -t karmic-proposed

This means you won't be prompted to upgrade all the -proposed packages, only ones you want to upgrade.

(!! So if I wanted to install just the new 'system-config-printer' packages, how would I do that? I'm sorry, but aptitude is a confusing program – aptitude -t karmic-proposed install system-config-printer (I'm not sure, I cannot test it atm)

I've tried this approach and it didn't work. I was only able to get the updated packages from "-proposed" after activating the repository in the GUI, as shown at the top of the page. - Hendrik)

Alternativly, you can install a package from -proposed by using

sudo aptitude install packagename/karmic-proposed

(I suppose you mean 'sudo aptitude install package/karmic-proposed'. Nevertheless, it seems that it doesn't work if you do not enable karmic-proposed in general. I think that there should be an easier way to test a proposed package (and to back off if needed). - Romano)

This method uses a higher priority to install packages.

If you use another release of Ubuntu, replace karmic by your release name everywhere.

Enable Apport

When running proposed it is recommend that you re-enable Apport bug filing to capture and report crashes. In the event that you end up reporting a crash about a proposed package please tag the bug as proposed-pkg so we can distinguish it from other crash reports.

You can enable Apport on a stable system with:

gconftool -s /apps/update-notifier/show_apport_crashes --type bool true

... or if you use Kubuntu edit /usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde-profile/default/share/config/adept_notifierrc and set Addept=true:

[General]
Adept=true

Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty and Karmic (and maybe latest release) also need Apport to be enabled in /etc/default/apport, edit this file and change enabled to 1.

sudo nano /etc/default/apport

Once Apport is enabled you need to start the process do that with the following command.

sudo /etc/init.d/apport start

For Karmic and newer releases

sudo service apport start

To test that Apport is now running, enter the following command to cause a simple crash and generate a crash file in /var/crash:

sh -c 'kill -SEGV $$'

This should notify about the crash and offer you to submit it to Launchpad. Click on 'Report' and verify that the details look complete (package name and version, has a (broken) stack trace, etc.). Please do not actually send it to Launchpad, though, since it is not a genuine bug.

• Click to zoom

Installation testing using -proposed

Sometimes you may be asked to test a netboot installer image from karmic-proposed. The images may be found here (replace "i386" with your architecture as necessary):

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/jaunty-proposed/main/installer-i386/

In order to install successfully from these images, you will normally need to tell the installer to fetch its own components from -proposed as well, which is not the default. To do this, add the following boot parameter:

apt-setup/proposed=true

You must make sure that the mirror you are installing from contains packages from -proposed. All official mirrors will do so; if you operate your own mirror or use a site-local mirror, it may need to be modified to pull from -proposed. Make sure that you do not simply use a loopback mount of a CD or DVD image as an installation source; this is one of the cases where such mirrors will not work, since they do not contain the updated kernel packages required by the new installer.

Uploading your hardware profile

To help us track the hardware test coverage, please upload your hardware profile for the system you will run proposed on using the hardware testing tool, found in the System -> Administration menu or with the command hwtest-gtk.

You can see your submitted information at https://launchpad.net/people/+me/+hwdb-submissions

Register your participation

We have set up an improvised way of tracking -proposed archive coverage using the bug tracker in Launchpad (but we are designing a more automated solution). To register your participation please select the appropriate bug for your architecture here and add a comment using the template in the description. Thanks!

Verifying SRU bugs

For extra points please help us verify the fixes to the proposed updates as listed here.