All I wanted is to install the current yt-dlp (2024.07.16-1) on debian 12.6.
Suggested way to that according to https://packages.debian.org/sid/all/yt-dlp/download is to add that line to that file (etc/apt/sources.list), but do I really need to download the 1600 files that upgrade would entail?
I don’t want to download the tar.gz 'cause upgrading that would be a pain.
Debian sid is their unstable branch; it contains all new packages before they are tested. As such, if you try to install updates from it, you’ll likely get a very unstable system.
You can set it up so that you only get a specific package ( https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#Can_I_use_Sid_packages_on_.22testing.22.3F ), but honestly, if you need the very latest version, I’d recommend just grabbing it from github or wherever. Iirc, yt-dlp has a
-Uflag which will automatically update it.