I was trying to get some program working but it depended on some libraries I didn't have. So, I found out that the libraries I needed were in the 'unstable' and added it to my sources.lst. Did an apt-get-update, then an apt-get upgrade....this caused like every single package already installed to get upgraded even the libc, libc++, core libraries and such.

However, no gnome doesn't work. xwindows'll start up, I see the mouse cursor and the tiny-checkerboard background, but it seems once it tries to start gnome, it crashes and restarts itself (5-6 times until it decides something's wrong). I looked in the logs and I see library dependencies not met and something about locale not found.

I tried removing 'unstable' from my sources.lst, apt-get update, and apt-get upgrade (even dist-upgrade) but it tells me packages are already the newest version. I'm one step away from just reinstalling, so is there anything I can do to force it to uninstall everything that was part of 'unstable' and then do an upgrade with 'stable'?

Rather than reinstall try doing a dist-upgrade to unstable. When I've been in a similar situation, that fixed it usually. If you want to stick with testing after that, just change your sources.list back to testing, and wait for it to catch up.

A tip ... if you want to be able to successfully remove packages, aptitude is a lot better at it than apt-get. Just use it from the command line, substituting aptitude for apt-get. You need to use one or the other exclusively, tho. If you want to switch to aptitude, your first exercise needs to be ... # aptitude keep-all

You might try apt pinning and be able to successfully downgrade. It can't make it more of a mess than you already have...

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Debian/downgrade.html
http://kennethhunt.com/archives/001539.html

If you keep unstable, you might be able to fix whatever problems you're having. Try running aptitude upgrade and seeing if there are packages being kept back and why.

I think apt pinning worked...it's practically upgrading all my packages my right...hopefully it actually works when finished.

Then again....now it's completely messed up....there was an error upgrading libc6 and now most programs don't work at all! (including 'ls','apt-get','aptitude','vim' and 'reboot'!)...now what?

(relocation error: /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6: symbol _rtld_global_ro, version GLIBC_PRIVATE not deifned in file ld-linux.so.2 with link time reference)

I recently had a problem with a dist upgrade from sarge to etch (running under cooperative linux, which is sort of vmware like). I ended up installing VMWare server and then just installing etch from the etch netinstall. That's the first time I've ever had to reinstall Debian because dpkg got borked up beyond repair. Not sure if it was that the upgrade path from Sarge to Etch isn't finished yet or because I was running it under coLinux.

Anyway, it might be less headache to just reinstall w/ Etch.

The best way to go to get sid is to grab a businesscard netinstall disc, from there you can choose a pure sid install. It's a lot cleaner and a lot less likely to backfire compared to dist-upgrading.

@Daws: the problem wasn't installing Sid, but downgrading Sid back to Etch...

This is precisely why I never recommend Sid to (new) Debian users. If you want the latest and greatest in applicationland, try Ubuntu, Kanotix or any other variant. Sid is Unstable and that *does* mean something! If you really can't live w/o Sid, Debian might not be the distro for you!

My

Never cross streams

LoL, I did the exact same thing as you a couple of weeks ago, aptitude ended up uninstalling a running kernel image - needless to say I had to reinstall after that. Oh well its all part of learning linux

Oops I guess I forgot to mention I was running Sarge 3.1....and I guess what is was upgrading me to was Sarge 4...

Also, needless to say...am reinstalling (actually downloading new images 'cause my dvds are dirty/scratched now). I used to mess with linux back in the day when application installation was a highly manual process.

It's not that bad though, only stuff I lost was just all the wireless stuff I had to go through in order to get my (pcmcia) card working...good thing I documented all that on here in my previous posts. Linux on my laptop was more of a testbed kind of thing, not a primary machine kind of thing.

hehe I kinda missed the point of this thread. Sorry, will read it properly next time. If we're talking about downgrading ... in general it is not a good idea, but it can be done.

For future reference this comes in handy while downgrading:

Where release is testing, unstable , stable or experimental. Code names do not work here I believe. If there is is going to be a problem it will probably be with this package, the command above explicitly tells apt to grab libc6 from a specific release. This works for other packages as well.

I agree with you. I actually use (ok, play with...) LFS more than Debian now. But I still keep Sid around. I recommend testing to most people, stable to those who might hurt me if something goes wrong and Sid to those who want to give back. By installing packages from Sid and submitting bug reports or even better fixing bugs (a bit beyond me at the moment), you are helping improve testing and eventually the new stable. At the same time you are indirectly improving all the distros based on Debian. I think that's quite cool.