How to upgrade a package in Debian 8?

Question

I'm using a docker image that comes with Debian 8 (jessie). I'm trying to upgrade curl package to the latest (7.58) from 7.38.

Running apt-cache showpkg curl shows that 7.38 is the latest version, but curl is at 7.58 (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/8.2/basicnet/curl.html)

I also checked Debian package website and it it looks like 7.38 is the latest. https://packages.debian.org/jessie/curl

Is there a way to upgrade curl 7.38 on my system to the latest?

Answer 1

This is normal as Debian 8 (jessie) is currently the oldstable release. If you search for Package curl you'll notice that the stable version currently has curl 7.52, while testing & unstable are already on version 7.62.

Old Debian releases won't have new feature updates, but receives security updated for a rather long LTS period. Therefore, having an older version doesn't mean you are at risk. Consider upgrading only if you actually need some new features.

Is there a way to upgrade curl 7.38 on my system to the latest?

• It's possible to run Debian stable but install some packages from testing, but mixing stable and testing may cause dependency conflicts, and mixing oldstable and testing is probably even more problematic.
• You can always compile, build and install curl from source. (No automatic updates, though.)