catch-22 upgrade (FYI)
Hello. Just some info for those considering upgrading from Sarge to
Etch (or Sid). I just upgraded my system from Debian Sarge, to Debian
Sid. I initially set out to upgrade to Etch, but circumstances drove me
to Sid.
I changed the repositories in my sources.list from sarge to etch, and
proceded. After a while it gave an error reading, claiming that to
upgrade udev, the kernel image had to be greater than 2.6.12 (I was
using 2.6.8). When trying to install the 2.6.15 kernel image, it
complained that a newer version of udev was required. The xserver
protested, committing hare-kare, and I was left using Lynx, and Pico
(not the cutting edge software I had been anticipating, needless to
say.) Running "apt-get -f install" did nothing.
I then altered the sources from Etch, to Sid, and, giving me hope,
various changes occurred. However, it left me with the same message,
that the new udev was required. I rebooted using the 2.4.27 kernel
image, and ran "apt-get -f install", and, strangely enough, it worked.
The new kernel installed, udev installed, the xserver came back to life,
and I ended up in an XFCE desktop, with my home directory in tact. An
unexpected surprise, to be sure, though I'm quite happy to have salvaged
my system.
I'm hoping one day that I'll be samrt and actually make a back-up of my
system before trying stuff like upgrading again. My OpenOffice.org 2.0
(converted from alien) seems to have vanished. I think my gnome desktop
environment is a casualty as well, but at least my home directory still
exists.
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