Hi,
I want to share my experience in dist-upgrading from a fresh new installation of etch to lenny(testing) and then to sid(unstable) because I've lost not few time trying doing this since the package system alwasy break for some reasons which I don't know - but the solution was really easy -.

Procedure to dist-upgrade from etch to testing and then to sid:
1) Install Debian with a small cd image in the standard way.
2) Log in your new system.
3) Open /etc/apt/sources.list with your preferred editor (you have to be root to modify the file) and then replace all the occurences of "etch" with "lenny" (or if you prefer "testing" which is the same).
Besides you have to add the string "contrib non-free" next to all the occurences of "main".
This is how /etc/apt/sources.list looks like at this point (substitute the repository with your preferred one):
4) From a root console do the following commands:

# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

5) Now if you want to test you could reboot your system and enter in your upgraded system.
6) Open again /etc/apt/sources.list as root. Replace all the occurance of "lenny"(or "testing") with "sid".
Add "#" at the beginning of the lines with the security updates since sid doesn't need them and so they doesn't exist.
This is how /etc/apt/sources.list looks like at this point:
7) Again from a root console do:

# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

8) Reboot and you should have a working Debian Sid system.

The thing that did the trick in my case was simply adding also the contrib and non-free packages. Without that I couldn't dist-upgrade, probably because of some main packages that depends on some contrib or non-free, but I don't know for sure.

Nice post. I just installed Lenny on my desktop and I am hoping to upgrade to Sid, for reasons of play and that I hope to add 3D graphics with the closed-source drivers, but I need either Sid or Etch sources and I might as well do a full upgrade. So one question I have is: Did you add a section in your sources list for Sid security updates, or does it do that on its own?

I didn't add a section for the security updates of Sid in /etc/apt/sources.list because there aren't security updates for Sid as in Etch(stable) and Lenny(testing).
Here is explained better what I mean http://wooledge.org/~greg/sidfaq.html#15.

From the link above:
"Does sid have security updates?

Not in the same sense that stable does. If the maintainer of a package fixes a security bug and uploads the package, it'll go into sid by the normal means. If the maintainer doesn't do that, then it won't. The security team only covers stable (and possibly testing... there's a pending issue for that case).

Sid users (hell, all Debian users!) are strongly urged to subscribe to the Debian security announce mailing list. And while you're at it, you should also be on the Debian devel announce list."

Sid doesn't get security updates as such. Updates that go through to stable and testing as security updates have otoh gone first through sid. So sid gets them first, they're just not called "security" updates there.

Edit: Slow typing.

thanks, lets just say that didn't go according to plan. I'm just going to leave unstable to virtualbox-ose. that way i can use my desktop when I need it for school.

If you install Etch (stable) and want Sid (unstable), there is no need to go through Lenny (testing). You can simply change the /etc/apt/sources.lst from stable/etch to unstable/sid. I would suggest doing it that way, as you'll download a bunch of things to go from stable to testing and then overwrite and waste your connection and the server's bandwidth an hour later going from testing to unstable.

Peace,
JimBass

Maybe that's true but at http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/re...-woody.en.html I've read this :
"Upgrading a system to the stable, testing, or unstable distribution may require several steps which must be in the following order:

* Upgrade to Woody (if your system is older than Woody)

* Upgrade to stable

* Upgrade to testing

* Upgrade to unstable

Debian does not support upgrades that skip intermediate releases."

Maybe that's only referred to Woody or older versions of Debian but I preferred don't skipping intermediate steps.

aleTT

That information is ancient. That alone doesn't make it wrong, but Etch is the current stable, Sarge was the stable before that, and I think Woody was one before that.

When doing a new install and you know you're heading to unstable, I've had the best luck doing a base install, and installing nothing beyond getting the box online. Then dist-upgrading direct to unstable. Hey if it screws up, it took 20 minutes to do, you can easily redo it to testing instead of unstable. I've always used unstable, and never did a full install of stable then upgraded past that.

Peace,
JimBass

I want to confirm that "Etch" -> "Lenny" upgrade works perfectly without a single issue. A reboot is required for the new kernel though.

Also my suggestion is that if you're planning to install from an old Etch CD, do a minimal base system install first (without X or KDE or GNOME or anything else), update your distribution to Lenny or testing and then install whatever else you want to including Xorg and a desktop environment, minimizing the chances of something borking the update.

Be careful anyway. Even a dist-upgrade in Lenny on my laptop broke it. The Nvidia driver would not install, and the WiFi was up to the point where it should aquire a DHCP address but it didn't. Both errors are filed in bug reports, this was 2 weeks ago. These are not the most unimportant issues. Furtermore there were problems with the ia32 libs (I am running AMD-64) but these have been solved. Gnome-games still have difficulties with some python games which exist for quite some time and could not be resolved.

Currently I would only recommend a dist-upgrade Etch -> Lenny if you can afford to miss the machine for a while. The gap between Stable and Testing has become large now. I know the development team is working quite hard to fix these issues so an upgrade can be performed smoothly.

Experience demonstrates that when Testing becomes Stable upgrading is almost risk-free

jlinkels

My understanding is that Lenny is "frozen" and almost stable at the moment, so you shouldn't experience any problems if any at all.

Lenny is frozen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all critical bugs are fixed. IMHO it means that no new functions or features are added, and that the upgrade process is tested thoroughly.

If it were ready, it would have been released

BTW, last week I did an upgrade from Sarge to Etchnhalf (it means kernel 2.6.24 I think) on a firewall. It was performed flawlessly. No, it was not a production server at the moment.

jlinkels

last time i check the records and bullitins(it was from june) there were 360 RC bugs in Lenny they had to get out before their release of it being stable in sept/oct.

Yes, but I was saying that the chances of new or critical bugs being introduced are less when it is frozen than if it is currently in a state of flux.

I wouldn't guarantee anyone else's results, but I'd be willing to bet that if I were upgrading a working Etch system to Lenny, it would be flawless ... any i386/AMD64 machine.

At the moment, that would include pulling Nvidia drivers from Sid. I understand they will be in Lenny within a few days.