Dist upgrade question

hitest · 11-25-2007, 12:18 PM

I'm a long-time Slackware user, but, lately I've started using Debian more and more. I now have one Slackware box at home and two Debian Etch 4.0r1 boxes. I'm very happy with my Debian Units.
I was thinking of doing a dist-upgrade on one of my Debian boxes. I'd like to try out Lenny again ( I've used the Lenny net install CD in the past, but, I'd like this time to try the upgrade pathway.)
Should I modify my sources.list from main to lenny or testing?
Thoughts, opinions?
Thank you for any and all replies.

hitest

rickh · 11-25-2007, 12:21 PM

If you change the sources.list to "lenny"; when Lenny goes Stable, you'll stay right with it.

If you change it to "testing"; when Lenny goes stable, you'll move automatically into the new Testing. That's what I do.

hitest · 11-25-2007, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

If you change the sources.list to "lenny"; when Lenny goes Stable, you'll stay right with it.

If you change it to "testing"; when Lenny goes stable, you'll move automatically into the new Testing. That's what I do.

Thank you, rickh! I'll modify my sources.list to say testing. I appreciate the help:-)

hitest

hitest · 11-25-2007, 06:19 PM

Cool:-)
Thank you, rickh, the dist-upgrade went without a hitch. Running Debian Lenny with a shiny new version of Gnome, 2.18.3.
I appreciate your advice. I love the fact that Debian is hardcore like Slackware and FreeBSD. All you need is a shell prompt and a text editor to work on your system:-)

rickh · 11-25-2007, 06:42 PM

Did you get the current Lenny kernel? (2.6.22) Once you do that, you'll probably have to update some drivers. module-assistant is the right tool for that.

For all practical purposes, you're actually running Gnome 2.20 ... There are just a few minor pieces still missing. I'm not sure if the nautilus bug is still there in Lenny, or not. Right click an icon, select Properties, and look at a tab or two. If it crashes, the bug is still there. It doesn't exist in Sid anymore, though, so if it's still in Lenny, it won't last long.

hitest · 11-25-2007, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

Did you get the current Lenny kernel? (2.6.22) Once you do that, you'll probably have to update some drivers. module-assistant is the right tool for that.

For all practical purposes, you're actually running Gnome 2.20 ... There are just a few minor pieces still missing. I'm not sure if the nautilus bug is still there in Lenny, or not. Right click an icon, select Properties, and look at a tab or two. If it crashes, the bug is still there. It doesn't exist in Sid anymore, though, so if it's still in Lenny, it won't last long.

Yep, I'm running the 2.6.22 kernel, everything seems to be running well. Did a right-click on icons haven't had any crashes......yet:-) This is definitely a worthwhile upgrade:-)
I wonder when they're going to upgrade Ice Weasel to 2.0.0.9, I'm running that on my Slackware box.

rickh · 11-25-2007, 07:24 PM

Quote:

I wonder when they're going to upgrade Ice Weasel to 2.0.0.9

It's in Sid now, so it shouldn't be too long. One of the nice things about running Lenny is that it's usually easy and safe to pull any specific program in from Sid if you just can't wait. There is, of course, a right way to go about doing that.

hitest · 11-25-2007, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

It's in Sid now, so it shouldn't be too long. One of the nice things about running Lenny is that it's usually easy and safe to pull any specific program in from Sid if you just can't wait. There is, of course, a right way to go about doing that.

Nice write-up on the debian forums, rickh:-)

hitest · 11-27-2007, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

If you change the sources.list to "lenny"; when Lenny goes Stable, you'll stay right with it.

If you change it to "testing"; when Lenny goes stable, you'll move automatically into the new Testing. That's what I do.

I've been happily running Lenny for several days now. I just wanted to clarify one thing you said, rickh. My sources.list is pointing towards testing. So, you are saying that when Lenny becomes stable I won't be required to do a dist-upgrade at all? The unit will automagically become the next testing version of Debian?
Very cool!

rickh · 11-27-2007, 08:21 PM

Quote:

when Lenny becomes stable I won't be required to do a dist-upgrade at all? The unit will automagically become the next testing version of Debian?

All true, and indeed it is a beautiful thing. On the day Lenny goes Stable, your new Testing installation will be an exact copy of the new Stable. It usually takes a couple or three weeks for the new packages to begin drifting into the new Testing release.

If you're like most of us, you'll get real tired of waiting during that 6-week or so period when nothing is going on in Testing, and you'll study mixed systems so you can pull in a few new things yourself.

hitest · 11-27-2007, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

All true, and indeed it is a beautiful thing. On the day Lenny goes Stable, your new Testing installation will be an exact copy of the new Stable. It usually takes a couple or three weeks for the new packages to begin drifting into the new Testing release.

If you're like most of us, you'll get real tired of waiting during that 6-week or so period when nothing is going on in Testing, and you'll study mixed systems so you can pull in a few new things yourself.

Wonderful:-) Thanks, rickh! So far I've found Lenny to be very stable, no observable bugs to date. It is all good.