***Warning to Mepis 7 users.***

rich_c · 02-17-2009, 04:37 AM

Some Mepis users (Those who have been keeping their install up to date but not allowing updates to overwrite sources.list predominantly.) may find that since Debian 5(Lenny) went to stable, they suddenly have hundreds of available updates showing. Don't install the updates you will break your system, probably fatally! Before you do anything, read this and have a look at the Mepislovers forum announcements.

This also applies to anyone who has a M7 CD and wants to install to HD since Feb 14th. In this case, there are two suggestions. Firstly, install Mepis 8 RC3 instead. It is the final release in all but name, practically. Alternatively, if you must install M7 make sure your sources.list has all references to stable replaced with oldstable or etch.

Simon Bridge · 02-17-2009, 05:49 AM

Because M7 is linked to "stable" instead of "etch" oops.
Good heads-up.

XavierP · 02-17-2009, 06:21 AM

Stickied to make it (hopefully) more visible.

rich_c · 02-18-2009, 04:42 AM

If this warning comes too late and you have hosed your system, Adrian at Mepislovers has posted some steps you can take to get you going again. You will end up with 'Mepis 7.5' though. That being Mepis 7 upgraded to Lenny. From there, it ought to be fairly simple to upgrade all the way to Mepis 8...

archtoad6 · 02-18-2009, 06:16 AM

FWIW, I'm running the official 32-bit M7 on this machine &

Code:

grep 'stable' /etc/apt/sources.list

produces nothing. It's all already referencing etch & I think it came that way.

My 64-bit box which runs 7.073uce 64-bit, is down right now so I can't check it at the moment.

I don't know if it would be helpful or harmful to write a sed one-liner to do the replacements.

rich_c · 02-18-2009, 07:05 AM

There was an update in the middle of last year that, if changes were accepted by the user, would have changed sources.list to point to etch rather than stable. I guess you didn't opt to keep your existing config when prompted.

As far as a script to replace as above, it might be an idea but on the other hand, getting people to do the changes in Synaptic is fairly straightforward and hopefully will encourage them to be a bit more aware of how Mepis hangs together...

archtoad6 · 02-19-2009, 08:57 AM

Just to be clear on my situation --

Quote:

Originally Posted by archtoad6

It's all already referencing etch & I think it came that way.

-- I didn't have to change anything. I guess I did accept the referenced change.

Only one problem w/ Synaptic: I don't use it. From the beginning, I have used KPackage instead. IIRC, it was the default when I started using MEPIS, & I see no reason to switch.

There are about 3 reasons for this:

I am thoroughly used to it, & the Synaptic interface is enough different that I see no benefit in changing.
Early on, Synaptic was "unusable" for me & my eyesight: I could not (edit: originally left the "not" out) read the gray on black, approx. 5 1/2 point display of the apt-get CLI results. KPackage, OTOH, gave me black on real white & an approx. 6 point display -- just the crucial difference for my old eyes. In some way I have never forgiven the Synaptic developers for being insensitive to the needs of people whose eyes aren't as good as theirs.
Most important, much as I love Debian & APT, KDE is primary to me. Therefore, I want my package manager to do KDE across distros, rather than do Debian/APT across desktop environments.

rich_c · 02-19-2009, 10:27 AM

Good points!

I guess you already know this but for those who don't, you can edit your sources.list using KPackage by the look of it. Click on Settings, then configure KPackage, then hit the Location of Packages button. I'm guessing from there you can make your changes, click apply and job is done!

archtoad6 · 02-22-2009, 08:21 AM

After you click the Location of Packages button, you will then see the lines of your sources.list displayed, each w/ a "Use" checkbox next to it. Checking the box removes the 1st '#' from the beginning of the line, uncommenting it if there is only one '#' at the beginning of the line. It does not distinguish between actual comments & source lines that have been inactivated by commenting them out.

I have attached 2 views of my own modified MEPIS 7 sources.list, the single '#' comments are stock, the '# #' ones are my modifications. Note the clarity of the view using less -- every character in the file is displayed. OTOH, the KPackage view does not distinguish between actual source source lines & comments. Woe unto you if you accidentally "Use" one of those comments.

The solution, if there are any Debian, APT, KDE, or KPackage developers out there reading this, is to allow ';' as an additional comment character; as Samba does for its smb.conf file:

Quote:

Any line beginning with a semicolon (“;”) or a hash (“#”) character is ignored, as are lines containing only whitespace.
-- smb.conf man page

This would allow distros & package mangagers to have a convention that '#' indicates a real comment, while ';' would mark a disabled source line. This seems to be the convention (not a rule, just a convention) in smb.conf & some other config files I have read.

I would retain:

Quote:

The rest of the line can be marked as a comment by using a #.
-- sources.list man page