krono

Simply wonderful.

I don’t have to get it from testing and “break” my stable box with mixed trees!

Add to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports main contrib non-free

Add to /etc/apt/preferences:
Package: *
Pin: release a=etch-backports
Pin-Priority: 750
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 700

Add to /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00Cache:
APT::Cache-Limit "33554432";
APT::Default-Release "etch-backports";

Do:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

Minimal sources.list configuration.

/etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian stable main non-free contrib
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian testing main non-free contrib
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main non-free contrib

When updgrading, stable versions of packages need to stay on stable. unstable versions are usually newer, so they overwrite stable versions if this is not properly handled with using Pin-Priority as stated below. If not explicitly requested, “apt-get install” installs stable version of a package.

/etc/apt/preferences:
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 700
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 650
Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 600

To install f.e. unstable version of a package with dependencies from unstable as well (preferred method, AFAIK), do the following:
apt-get install package -t unstable

To install the same package, but to resolve it’s deps from stable:
apt-get install package/unstable