Thanks for your attempt, I did #apt-get dist-upgrade because of an advise on
http://debianhelp.org/module-pnForum...opic-9927.html
An ignorant user like me does not know any better.
why apt-get dist-upgrade is not a good thing to do, man apt-get says it should take car of all dependencies (apt-get has a "smart" conflict resolution system ...)
it indicates apt_preferences for overriding the general settigns for individual packages.
now, my system.
#cat /etc/debian_version
3.0
was the last time I checked when I was able to login.
#uname –a
Linux debian 2.6.8 #1 Sat Aug…. i686 GNU/Linux