I tried to do an update with Synaptic and it looks like it's trying to kill my Etch system. It wants to remove gnome and my fglrx drivers... I typed apt-get dist-upgrade to show what it wants to do:

The following packages will be REMOVED
base-config fglrx-driver fglrx-driver-dev fglrx-kernel-2.6.12-1-686 gnome
gnome-desktop-environment gnome-volume-manager hal libcamel1.2-0
libebook1.2-3 libedataserverui1.2-4
The following NEW packages will be installed
gtkhtml3.8 libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3
libavahi-compat-howl0 libavahi-qt3-1 libcamel1.2-6 libdbus-1-2
libdbus-glib-1-2 libebook1.2-5 libecal1.2-3 libedataserverui1.2-6
libegroupwise1.2-8 libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common libgnome-menu2
libgtkhtml3.8-15 libhal-storage1 libhal1 liblua50 liblualib50
libnautilus-burn2 libtotem-plparser0 libwnck18 libxres1 python-gmenu
The following packages have been kept back:
ffmpeg
The following packages will be upgraded:
apmd bug-buddy capplets-data cpp-4.0 debconf debconf-i18n debconf-utils
dia-common dia-gnome dia-libs dictionaries-common epiphany-browser evolution
evolution-data-server fakeroot g++-4.0 gcc-4.0 gcc-4.0-base gedit
gedit-common gnome-about gnome-applets gnome-applets-data
gnome-control-center gnome-desktop-data gnome-media gnome-menus
gnome-netstatus-applet gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-system-monitor
gnome-system-tools gnome-utils gnomemeeting inkscape kdelibs-bin
kdelibs-data kdelibs4c2a lib64gcc1 libapm1 libbonoboui2-0
libbonoboui2-common libc6 libc6-amd64 libc6-dev libdb4.3 libdmx1
libedata-book1.2-2 libedata-cal1.2-1 libedataserver1.2-4 libeel2-2
libeel2-data libfs6 libgcc1 libglu1-xorg libgnome-desktop-2 libgnome2-0
libgnome2-common libgnomevfs2-0 libgnomevfs2-common libgtk2-perl libice6
libnautilus-extension1 libnetpbm10 libpanel-applet2-0 libpango1.0-0
libpango1.0-common libpango1.0-dev libsensors3 libsepol1 libsm6 libstdc++6
libstdc++6-4.0-dev libvte-common libvte4 libwnck-common libx11-6 libx11-dev
libxau6 libxaw7 libxaw8 libxdmcp6 libxext-dev libxext6 libxfixes-dev
libxfixes3 libxi-dev libxi6 libxinerama-dev libxinerama1 libxkbfile-dev
libxkbfile1 libxkbui1 libxmu6 libxmuu1 libxp6 libxpm4 libxrandr-dev
libxrandr2 libxss1 libxt6 libxtrap6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1
libxxf86misc1 libxxf86vm1 locales lsb-base makedev mtools nautilus
nautilus-cd-burner nautilus-data netpbm openoffice.org-common
openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk-gnome
openoffice.org-l10n-en-us pmount python-gnome2-extras
python2.3-gnome2-extras rar rss-glx sound-juicer totem totem-xine
ttf-opensymbol twm udev x-dev x-window-system-core x11-common xbase-clients
xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-base xfonts-base-transcoded
xfonts-scalable xlibmesa-dri xlibmesa-gl xlibs xlibs-data xserver-common
xserver-xorg xterm xutils yelp
149 upgraded, 26 newly installed, 11 to remove and 1 not upgraded.


The last time I did this, it killed my system... anybody have any experience with an upgrade lately? Should I let it go, or will it kill my computer?

I used synaptic to install available updated packages yesterday. There was some packages that was going to be removed, but i didn't think much about that since the updates has worked perfectly in the past. Unfortunately OpenOffice has stopped working, telling med that libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.1' is missing. :-(

Looks like it wants to remove the fireglx and your most likely running kernel I would go with just an apt-get upgrade and install just the leftover packages individually because they are bringing in new packages. Look carefully at the output of what apt will do too make sure that it is not going to remove something important you need.