bringing debian on old system up-to-date

mvbv-linux · 03-23-2004, 12:49 PM

Hi,
I'm new to Debian and I recently installed a debian distro (woody) on an old 200 Mhz.
Now, I want to make sure that I have a fully up-to-date system. Could you give me some advice on how to use apt-get / dpkg to achieve this ?
Should I unstable ? Can you post your sources.list ? thanks

Btw, if you are aware of any good complete tutorial about apt-get and dpkg, please, post some links.

comp12345 · 03-23-2004, 01:11 PM

To edit your sources.lst, type in apt-setup and pick what servers you want to grab packages from. I use http://linux.csua.berkeley.edu. It's never given me any trouble and I always get good speeds with that site. Pick two sites just in case one of them does not have all the packages updated. Sometimes I get missing dependency packages when using unstable, so it's up to you whether or not you want to deal with possible issues that might come up by choosing to have the lastest sources.

To update your system, type "apt-get update" then "apt-get upgrade"

mvbv-linux · 03-23-2004, 01:28 PM

how do I get the latest version of openssl for instance ? I've done an upgrade but still have a 0.9.6 version, which seems to have security flaws...

I've put some unstable sources but that didn't change.
By the way, if I have unstable and stable sources in my source.list, how do I tell apt to get stable packages only or unstable for some of them ???

HappyTux · 03-23-2004, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mvbv-linux
how do I get the latest version of openssl for instance ? I've done an upgrade but still have a 0.9.6 version, which seems to have security flaws...

I've put some unstable sources but that didn't change.
By the way, if I have unstable and stable sources in my source.list, how do I tell apt to get stable packages only or unstable for some of them ???

That is the version you should have if you are getting it from the correct sources.

Code:

stephen@SleepyTux:~$ apt-cache policy openssl
openssl:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.9.6c-2.woody.6
  Version Table:
     0.9.6c-2.woody.6 0
        500 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Packages
     0.9.6c-2.woody.4 0
        500 http://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Packages

As you can see with Debian the package number usually will not change but the fix for the security problem will be backported and included in the old package then the - suffix on the end of the package will be bumped up and the new package with the fix will be installed on your machine next time you do a apt-get update and upgrade because it will see a new version is available. This of course assumes that you have the security archives in your sources.list here is what I use on my Woody box.

Code:

stephen@SleepyTux:~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (woody) - miniwoody]/ stable contrib main non-US non-free
#Security updates
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free

#KDE sources
#deb http://download.kde.org/stable/3.1.1/Debian stable main

#Stable sources
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stable main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main non-free contrib

#Proposed Updates no longer needed now woody is r2
#deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable-proposed-updates main non-free contrib

## Added by me from security alert by Debian for the latest chkrootkit
deb http://lackof.org/taggart/debian woody/chkrootkit main
deb-src http://lackof.org/taggart/debian woody/chkrootkit main

You should remove the entry for unstable from the sources.list and get the package from the security archives. You do not want to mix unstable and stable packages on the system it will not work without major effort if you want newer packages then you should go to http://www.apt-get.org or http://www.backports.org and get the proper lines for the sources.list for a version of the package you want built for Woody.

mvbv-linux · 03-24-2004, 01:18 AM

Well, thanks for these clear explanations.
I had a look at back www.backports.org. It looks like what I needed...
However, say that take the latest version of a package on backports.
1 month later, there is an official debian security update for that package. Will apt-get be able to recognize the backport and replace it with the new package from the security updates ?
Or will I have to wait for a 'backport' release ?