Thinking of installing libc6(>= 2.4) to replace 2.3.6.ds1-13etch5 in Etch. Because this is needed by xwinwrap (trying to get animated desktop in KDE - xwinwrap will put applications on the root window, so put mplayer on root window, I think is how it works.)

But libc is presumably something that practically everything uses?? So am I likely to bugger things? Don't install anything you can't uninstall.

Yes, I think it would be a mistake. As you say, libc6 is so essential that your whole system will end up off-kilter. If you have to have the package that requires a newer version of libc, I would recommend looking into upgrading to Lenny. (Theoretically, you could install the newer version of libc6 in a non-standard place and then maintain two separate versions. That strikes me as more trouble than it's worth and error-prone.)

Thenks. I won't do it. Try to find an older version of xwinwrap perhaps, though it was difficult enough finding existing one.

If this is on a desktop upgrading would be a great idea since Lenny should be released soon and its perfectly fine right now.

Or you could install a newer kernel from etchnhalf or backports, the 2.6 kernel needs the newer lib so it would upgrade it safely.

Allright, I'm easilly led, I'll install LennyBeta.

You should be able to upgrade rather than reinstall.

1) Do a full backup of essential data, files, etc.
2) Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list so that instead of etch or stable, it says lenny.
3) Run these commands: It should be as simple as that, though sometimes there can be complications.

If you've been using only apt-get or Synaptic up until now, you may need to add aptitude keep-all before upgrading in order to keep aptitude from removing many packages you don't want removed. Check the output of the dist-upgrade command carefully before you say yes.

Many people recommend doing this sort of upgrade without X, so you might want to consider shutting down your xserver before you start as well.

Luckilly the installer would not work, it wouldn't mount the CD, so did an upgrade instead currently using the first and second Lenny beta2 CD's.

Seems to be reasonably allright but - sorry to be so ignorant - cannot work out how to put in the new kernel??

Not ignorant at all. First, figure out what your current kernel is with the command uname -r. Then, do a search of the kernels available in Lenny by entering aptitude search linux-image. The old one is probably something like linux-image-2.6.18-6-686. What you want to do is simply get the equivalent -686 kernel in the new series. So for example if you really have a -686 kernel, you want to install linux-image-2.6.26.1-686.

Followed your reciepy for reinstall and it worked well using the first 9 CD's.

Installed the .deb kernel package from CD-1. It put in the new kernel leaving the old and the new kernel works.

Slightly off topic perhaps but someone else might have the same problem: Had to install new NVidia drivers for the new kernel. The installer said that the version of gcc installed is 4.2 while the kernel (2.6.24....AMD64) was made with version 4.1. Since the Linux module installer has a strict policy of checking that kernel and gcc match I was probably buggered. But went ahead anyway and it worked. If the installer is correct about this it, at least, appears a cock up.

Yup, it's a well-known problem. There are a few ways of dealing with it: (1) you can install gcc-4.1 and then build the module with that version of gcc rather than gcc-4.2, (2) you can custom compile a kernel with gcc-4.2, so that the kernel and module match or (3) you can ignore the warning and let the two builds mis-match. The third method seems to work out for most people in this case, though I generally prefer (2) myself.

Thanks for all your help. Now all I've got to do is get the thing to mount CD's, get TV card working .....

Hi all, lugoteehalt

I've been hunting a copy of xwinwrap for my good old debian stable and eventually found an old version (revision 1.1.1.1) of xwinwrap that I have working on a standard Debian etch with libc6 version 2.3.6.

Here's the link: "http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/xapps/xwinwrap/"

In that directory you'll find two files Makefile and xwinwrap.c.

What I have done is to create a xwinwrap directory on my comp, dumped the two files within, cd, and make. Then copied the resulting Xwinwrap executable into /usr/bin.

Undoubtedly this version of xwinwrap comes with all the bugs that have been ironed out in the newer versions, but personally I find it fun to play with things anyway.

Good luck and hope this has helped...


Albert

That's interesting I didn't realise you could do that. It might be the reciepy for some unbelievably irritating programs that have no README and don't respond to configure;make;etc..

neither did I untill I tried.....

albert