I am a total noob but I heard that kernel 2.6.20 was finally realeased as stable so I am trying to update my machine. I am currently running 2.6.18

I was reading through the thread found here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=547520

and when I get to the part where it says:

I am trying to do it, but I get the following error:
build-essential: Depends: libc6-dev but it is not going to be installed or libc-dev
Depends: g++ but it is not going to be installed

I think that it is a repository problem, but like I said, I am a total noob.

please let me know if you have any suggestions so that I can move on and get the newer kernel. Thanks!

What is the contents of the file /etc/apt/menu.lst?

menu.lst does not exist, however in sources.list I have:

deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main

deb http://mirrors.xmission.com/debian/ etch main non-free

deb-src http://mirrors.xmission.com/debian/ etch main non-free

D*mn, you're right... Confused grub and apt My fault Anyway, did you do a complete upgrade yet?

I did apt-get upgrade and it says:
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

So I assume that it is up to date.

Try the dist-upgrade option. Also, try installing g++ as it's a dependency of libc6-dev, which in turn is a dependency of the build-essential package. Before that you may try to install the other packages and leave the build-essential package for the moment.

<edit>There's always the "build-from-source" option: http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/K...ild-HOWTO.html Make sure to add the -o flag when building the initrd ramdisk.</edit>

it seems like an endless list of packages that can't be installed. Do you know of any additional repositories that I could add that would fix this?

Yep, add the contrib repo's into your sources.list. Then run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

This thing is still not working out for me. I changed my repositories to:

deb http://mirrors.xmission.com/debian/ stable main non-free
deb-src http://mirrors.xmission.com/debian/ stable main non-free
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib

Does anyone know where I can find repositories? mainly one where I will be able to install the g++ package?

You seem to me to be too confused to be messing around trying to build a new kernel. You are running Stable, and that's good. The 2.6.20 kernel that has just been called stable by kernel.org is not the same 2.6.20 kernel that you could download from Sid.

I would avise you to leave that idea alone. Go to backports.org, read their instructions, and set up your sources.list to get things from there as soon as they are ready for Etch.

If you want to experiment with newer software, upgrade to Lenny first.

Edit: A tip ... your sources.list file right now should look like this:To that, you will need to add the backports.org repo once you understand how to do it.

Once you get the sources.list set up like that, run:
# aptitude keep-all
# aptitude update

At that point you will probably get a gpg error from debian-multimedia. To clear it, run:
# aptitude install debian-multimedia-keyring

my biggest thing is that I am using Sarge and I want a newer distro. The repos say etch because someone at work told me to change the stable to etch and it would get the stuff that I needed. That does not appear to be the case though.

Rick Thanks for the advice, I have been reading through backports.org so hopefully I'll be able to figure this thing out.

What is the output of $ uname -r ?

Edit: Never mind that. Read the Release notes regarding the upgrade from Sarge to Etch and follow it carefully. The advice you received as far as just changing your sources.list is over simplistic. If you're lucky it may even work, but there are a number of considerations you should be aware of.

uname -r produces:

2.6.18-4-686

I have been using synaptic to get my packages so it is possible that a dist-upgrade happened along the way without me knowing.

It is amazing what can happen when you read! When my computer was rebooting I noticed that it said I was running 'Lenny/SID' so I guess I was just being a complete moron this entire time. Sorry to have wasted your time. I did learn some new things though

Your caught in the middle of a transition of the development packages from the looks of it it needs newer libc6* and others. You would need a line for unstable in your sources.list then use what is called apt pinning to keep your machine at the testing/lenny branch while getting the packages you need to install build-essential from unstable with a command like apt-get install -t unstable libc6 libc6-dev gcc g++ cpp .... this list could go on until it stops complaining about not installing. If you really need/want the 2.6.20 kernel then you can install a pre-compiled one from Debian by using the apt pinning as well no need to compile your own unless you want to.

BTW you should have changed your sources.list back to testing or lenny otherwise you will not be getting the latest packages as they become available and trying to install packages from the stable branch could be a pain.