Can it be upgraded? Debian 4 will not install current packages
 

I was recently given an IBM Thinkpad laptop with Debian 4.0 installed on it. The laptop is a P/166, no CD, proprietary floppy drive only.

Long story short, when I got it the root password was unknown, and the machine could boot and access network resources, but little else. Long story short, I managed to use tomsrtbt to get the root passwd to a known value, etc.

I eventually copied the sources.list file over from a debian 7 machine I have and was able to see the online repository of current packages, but each package installation fails because all of the current packages use "breaks", which are not supported by the version of dpkg that that laptop has installed on it.

My question is: is it possible to somehow replace dpkg with a more recent file? Or would I be better served just installing a more recent version and if the latter, what floppy boot options do I have anymore? Obviously the best option is to boot from a floppy and then simply install the whole system via the network. Thanks in advance for any help...

you can't mix versions like that

it would be easier to just reinstall with 7 than find a 4 mirror (it's WAY out support) or upgrade all the way up to 7

Hi,

in principle you should be able to upgrade it all the way to Debian 7. However, you should probably need to do it one version at a time. Ie 4->5->6->7.

You'll need to use the "archive" repositories for 4 and 5. See https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive

And you'll need to use the "LTS" repo for 6. See https://wiki.debian.org/LTS

Read the release notes for each upgrade and then proceed. For example for the 4->5 upgrade read this https://www.debian.org/releases/lenn...rading.en.html

Note, that if it wasn't for the lack of CD drive (and presumably inability to boot from USB) I'd probably recommend a reinstall since it would be faster. However, there really is no reason why you can't perform this upgrade. If you are willing to do it we can help if you have problems.

Cheers,

Evo2.

You can use debootstrap or frugal install with unetbootin. Debootstrap is a sticky in this forum.

I wouldn't even bother upgrading that to a modern Linux system. Add the debian etch archive repository, upgrade and leave it at that.

Or format the drive and install OpenBSD or NetBSD (from floppies).

What do you mean by "proprietary floppy"?

Hi,
That machine is unlikely to be able to boot from USB.

Evo2.

Hi,
Neither would I, I'd bin it. However the OP likely has valid reasons for wanting to use it.

Evo2.

How much ram is on this system?

@ superdeez, yes it *possibly* can be upgraded (I'd say it is highly unlikely if you keep Gnome installed) but under normal circumstances it really isn't worth the effort. A machine that old would stall on opening Gnome 3 purely because it doesn't have the resources to run it. My remaining answer is based on the assumption you have a strong desire or abnormal circumstances.

Correct, but I seriously doubt it would run Gnome 3, and here is a link straight to the dist directory. http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/
All you would need to do at each stage is change the sources.list to the next release.
E.G. Upgrade 1 from Debian 4 (etch) to Debian 5 (lenny)
Upgrade 2 from Debian 5 (lenny) to Debian 6 (squeeze)
I personally wouldn't go any further than this and if the machine ever saw the internet I would enable squeeze LTS
Upgrade 3 from Debian 6 (squeeze) to Debian 7 (wheezy).
After a lot of downloads (I'd suggest a couple GB) you might have a functioning Debian 7 (Wheezy) install.

No s/he wouldn't need to use Squeeze LTS at all if upgrading right through the Wheezy. I would, however, stop at Squeeze and enable Squeeze LTS and leave the machine at that. I'd even go further and install Fluxbox and remove Gnome.

Really good idea.

Hi,

one thing that I forgot to mention, is that when doing multistep upgrades like this it can speed things up enormously if you first strip your system back as far as you can. For example by purging any X11 related packages that are installed.

Also, as k3lt01 points out, you won't be able to run a full blown GNOME3 desktop on this machine anyway.

Evo2.

I doubt gnome 2.x from Debian etch would run well (at all) on a Pentium 166MHz - never mind gnome 3.x...

When you consider that a P166 is 1990s hardware and that Debian etch was released in 2007 I suppose it makes some sense.

It's all well and good installing X.org and a *box wm, but good luck on doing anything productive. It will certainly struggle to run any modern browser. One of the *BSDs I suggested, with something like fvwm and a very simple (no javascript) browser, like dillo, is probably about as good as it's going to get. Depends on how much RAM in the machine as well.

With the size of web pages nowadays I wouls expect only a text-mode browser not to flood the RAM immediately.

Indeed. Even a *box wm will struggle on a P166, but, that is probably as good as it will get for that hardware. Yes. A light wm and OpenBSD would be a good choice. Dillo is as much as that box will handle. That box might be better used as a router or something that does not need x windows at all.