I got an amd64 box last winter and I really like Debian. So I struggle around and finally get the thing working running the old amd64 sarge (when it was testing) port. Then the big update comes in June, and not only is amd64 officially supported but sarge is moved to stable. I decide to stick with sarge (I've never ran stable before). I am used to poking around and running 'apt-get update' and 'apt-get dist-upgrade' every now and then to keep up to date. Now I run that and get nothing, which concerns me a bit since I used to get nothing before occasionally when I screwed up 'sources.list ', plus some of the amd64 mirrors were kinda obscure, and the amd64 mirror now is not a debian.org URL. So here's the stupid question:

If I am running Debain 'stable', and I repeatedly get nothing from 'apt-get update', is that because there are no (or few) changes to stable? Or is my 'sources.list' screwed up?

I think it is because there are so few updates . Although I'm using Debian Sarge x86, I get the same response with "apt-get update". Only a few times did I get a list of software to be upgraded.

I will say this, my system is definitely stable. Go figure.

Just a thought

From my experience using x86, "apt-get update" has been listing new updates about 2 or 3 times a week. They have been slowing down a little lately.

Now for my own stupid question. Are you running "apt-get upgrade" after update? That's when it actually downloads and installs the updates.

It's worth subscribing to the Debian Security Announcements mailing list. This drops a nice mail into your inbox when a new security update is available. Most of the time, these updates aren't for anything I'm running, and I'll run once a week when the weekly news comes through just to keep things tidy. I wouldn't worry about a lack of updates, as with Debian, it's likely you don't have a stack of programs installed that are constantly been updated + fixed as with slightly heavier distros like SuSE which get a *lot* of updates, so you'll probably only get base security updates coming through and the occasional application depending on how much you have installed!

Thanks for the replies. I always had trouble with 'sources.list' in the old AMD64 port, so I may be a little paranoid.

I run 'apt-get dist-upgrade' right after 'apt-get update'. Somewhere I read that 'apt-get dist-upgrade' was better than plain old 'apt-get upgrade'. Although I must admit that I was simply running 'apt-get update' without then upgrading on my laptop for nearly a whole year.