dist-upgrade to Testing --NOT Recommended--

jlinkels · 11-06-2005, 05:58 PM

Yesterday I did an dist-upgrade to Debian Testing. I was running a mixed Woody-Sarge-Etch-Sid system, and I wanted a little bit of consistency.

Had I better not done it... This installs KDE 3.4, and that is what I had not expected in Etch, but only in Unstable. I should have checked it before with apt-search showpkg kdesktop

Three errors which I find extremely annoying popped up in the first five minutes I used KDesktop:

- When Konqueror (file mode) reopens when a KDE session is restored, the tree view has disappeared. You have to restart every Konqueror instance again to get it back.

- The "devices" tree has disappeared, and when you click devices it says "protocol not supported: device"

- KMail keeps complaining at about every action that it wants to use KWallet. You cannot store your passwords in KMail anymore, no matter how hard you try.

Oh.. and a fourth one: (In KMail again)

- When you forward a HTML mail, HTML code in the body is being forwarded to the recipient. This means that the recipient actually sees garbage. In the old version it was converted to plain text.

I am wondering what more I'll encounter. I had not expected this in "Testing"

If I am wrong and some of these are not bugs, but just my inability to recognize a proper setting, let me know.

This is not a bug, but still annoying. In the previous KDE, when you moved the mouse over the icons in the panel, the icon would blow up. It was configurable. Now it doesn't do that anymore but if you move your mouse over the icon, a window appears telling you what the function is. The only problems are that the first window is animated and takes about half a minute to appear, and the size is 150x300 pixels.

You have been warned.

jlinkels

cddesjar · 11-06-2005, 06:10 PM

It seems to me that you're STILL running a mixed machine even after an upgrade because you've probably got some packages stil from sid on your machine. Hmm...

jlinkels · 11-06-2005, 06:20 PM

KDesktop 3.4 IS part of the Etch package.

Code:

donald_pc:/usr/src# apt-cache showpkg kdesktop 
Package: kdesktop 
Versions: 4:3.4.2-4(/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_testing_main_binary-i386_Packages)
(/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages)
(/var/lib/dpkg/status)

Besides, I did

Code:

apt-get dist-upgrade -t testing

which gives me hopefully an upgrade to Etch, not to Sid

cddesjar · 11-06-2005, 07:40 PM

My thought is that you'll still have some applications, libraries, etc. from sid because you can't downgrade to Etch packages if you've got packages from Sid on your computer that are newer.

kmoffat · 11-06-2005, 09:22 PM

Yes, to downgrade there is a switch, --force-downgrade, I think. Otherwise the sid packages would be left alone.

cddesjar · 11-06-2005, 09:38 PM

I am 100% sure you can't downgrade like that at least with Debian.

short101 · 11-06-2005, 11:43 PM

you mix woody, sarge, etch and sid and you complain about it being broken?

jlinkels · 11-07-2005, 02:19 AM

It was working,

What I am unhappy about is that I got KDE 3.4 installed and it is buggy. It is the new apps that are buggy, not due to the mix.

jlinkels

WhatsHisName · 11-07-2005, 10:41 AM

The title of this thread “dist-upgrade to Testing --NOT Recommended–“ is misleading.

It should probably read “don’t try to dist-upgrade when using a mixed system”. Been there, done that, won’t do it again.

Upgrading “pure” Sarge to Etch is not only easy to do, but you’ll probably be happier with the end result than trying to net-install Etch. The only nonobvious thing you need to do is to convert from xfree86 to xorg before doing the full dist-upgrade.

Starting with “pure” Sarge:

-apt-get install apt-listbugs # Unless you already installed it
-Change apt sources to testing (including security)
-apt-get update
-apt-get install xserver-xorg # Run from a tty, in case X crashes
-reboot
-apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-686 # or smp, etc. to get the latest Etch kernel
-reboot
-apt-get -f install
-apt-get dist-upgrade
-reboot

That’s it.

*Dark Dragon* · 11-07-2005, 06:31 PM

Quote:

I am wondering what more I'll encounter. I had not expected this in "Testing"

As far as I understand all encountered by you problems doesn't exist in REAL "Testing" distribution. Your problem is simple - you have broken packages. This is probably because of not downgraded packages and/or old config files (which you may try to use instead of new ones). I know very well what means to have mixed distribution, and what problems may be faced when upgrading. I didn't faced most possible (and sometimes major) problems only because when I'm doing something, I understand what I'm doing. In other word, support (and upgrading) of mixed distribution isn't thing for simple user. You may choose between two choices: simplicity - then use only packages which belongs to your current distribution, and perform upgrade to newer one when needed; or hard way: learn GNU/Linux, learn its structure and architecture, at least up to level of understanding how to do something unusual like mixing different distribution without problem, and how to upgrade without problem. When you learn this, this "hard way" will be "simple" for you. Important thing is: don't panic! This is primary rule. With Linux there is no not solvable problems. And in most cases solving some "hard problems" is very simple, you only need to analyze the situation. First, try to downgrade some (or even all) of your packages to your current "Testing" distribution. This probably will help. Also check your config file. If you are trying to use old ones, then try standart new configs instead - if this is change something from bad to good, then there is some problem with old configs.

ironwalker · 11-07-2005, 06:41 PM

Did you change your /etc/apt/preferences file before trying to dist-upgrade to etch or unstable?
Without proper preperation you will have a mixed system either way...downgradeing or upgradeing.

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 1001

commenting out all entries not related to etch in sources.list as well.

To maintain a pure testing system,add this ;

Code:

APT::Default-Release "testing";

to the file /etc/apt/apt-conf.Delete whatever else is there or comment out the lines not related.

I think thats it.Same holds true to downgradeing from unstable to testing.or if you want a unstable system follow all but useing unstable as reference.

Edit;
the above smiley is a D with two :'s before it

jlinkels · 11-07-2005, 07:05 PM

Wow... I had not expected being flamed like this.

Now, you mean that the broken Konqueror (protocol is not supported: devices) is a result of a mixed system? And so is the password storage of KMail?

I googled for those two errors, and both have a bug report filed.

Are they not "real"?

And please believe me, I do understand a little bit what I am doing. I am not complaining about breaking my system. (Thank gawd it is my home desktop, not my laptop!) I am not a Windoze user who switched two months ago. I have done a dist-upgrade often on a variety of systems (both console and KDE), but that was before KDE 3.4 was released in "testing".

If the community (I mean you

) is convinced that KDE 3.4 does not have the errors I just described, I rest my case, and remove my warning. I had a reason to dist-upgrade the system, but that reason was not to get KDE 3.4. And thanks for the good advice. I am serious.

Yes, and I should have checked apt-cache showpkg. That was the first line in my original post, which pretty much closes the circle, doesn it?

jlinkels

WhatsHisName · 11-07-2005, 08:02 PM

ironwalker: The files /etc/apt/preferences and /etc/apt/apt.conf don’t exist on either my Sarge or Etch systems (even as hidden files), but oddly enough, they do on my fedora systems.

Searching Sarge /etc for files containing “sarge”, “3.1" or “stable” turned up debian_version, issue and issue.net, which all change to “testing/unstable” after the dist-upgrade. It was something I looked at/for before and after the dist-upgrade. In fedora, you install fedora-release-whatever before an upgrade, but I couldn’t find anything like that in debian.

Do you think that the version change is or should be referenced somewhere else?

P.S. jlinkels: You’re not being flamed. I know flaming when I see it and this isn’t flaming. This is purely educational. Every time someone tells me I did something wrong, I usually learn something.

ironwalker · 11-08-2005, 12:42 PM

From my understanding you can just make those files.

Ted Merrill · 11-11-2005, 02:51 PM

I'm running strictly Debian "testing" and should have a minimum of crud in the system as i reinstalled from Sarge a few months ago (after a meltdown using sid) and have been following "testing" since then. I followed the suggestion from "WhatsHisName" to install xserver-xorg and that went well. I'm running the latest kernel.

What i don't understand is that when i do "apt-get dist-upgrade" it wants to remove a fair number (68) of packages, including those for k3b (which i like to have) and abiword, amarok and digikam (which i can do without). Perhaps k3b is considered broken??? ... any thoughts?