I've been using Etch in the testing phase for several months now. Now that it's "stable" is there any reason for me to download a new version of it and it install that? How about Lenny?

I do very little in the command line mode, as I have not learned much about it, even though I do have a good resource book, The Linux Cookbook. There are minor issues I have such as not being able to use my new printer, an Epson Stylus R260, and I cannot get Amarok to recognize and configure my ipod shuffle. Other than that I'm pleased with the performance of the version of Etch I have.

just wondering if I should make the change.

In /etc/apt/sources.list, keep Etch on each line to stay with Etch or change Etch to Lenny to go to Lenny.

There is no need to reinstall anything, just make the changes to sources.list and run "aptitude update && aptitude dist-upgrade" and you will be running the current version of whichever branch you have chosen.

--Ian

just to be clear ( as I am a virtual newbie when it comes to command line functions ) I went in to a terminal as root and typed "aptitude update && aptitude dist-upgrade"

a window popped up and text went so fast that I don't know exactly what happened, this is what was written:

Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Beta i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070317-20:46] etch Release.gpg
Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Beta i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070317-20:46] etch Release
Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Beta i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070317-20:46] etch/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Beta i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070317-20:46] etch/main Packages/DiffIndex
Get:1 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release.gpg [189B]
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release
Get:2 http://ftp.debian.org etch Release.gpg [378B]
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex
Hit http://ftp.debian.org etch Release
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Sources/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages
Ign http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Packages/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages
Ign http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Sources/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Sources
Hit http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Packages
Hit http://ftp.debian.org etch/main Sources
Fetched 2B in 1s (1B/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
Building tag database... Done
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.


does this mean that I am current?

Yes, it means you're current, but you should comment out (put a # in front of) the CDROM line in your sources.list file.

?

this is how my /etc/apt/sources.list file appears presently...

#
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Beta i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070317-20:46]/ etch contrib main

deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Etch_ - Official Beta i386 NETINST Binary-1 20070317-20:46]/ etch contrib main

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ etch main
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ etch main

deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib


so you are saying I should place "#" where?

This is my sources.list:
As you can see, the top 2 lines have a hash (#) in front of it. That means the rest of the line is ignored. Open the file /etc/apt/sources.list and add the # to the lines with the cdrom entries.

gotcha, thanks