Re: dist-upgrade sarge to etch

[hendrik@topoi.pooq.com]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2006 at 01:29:59AM +0200, sigi wrote:
> > I did this once about a month back and broke my entire system. 
> > 
> > I was merely looking for a kernel upgrade to get my nForce-based sound
> > card working. Things may have changed since then. 
> > 
> > I didn't mind losing the gnome and kde stuff but I also lost my X setup.
> 
> Hmm, this sounds really bad! With this sarge-installation I recently 
> can't print or scan and have no sound (nForce-based too)... With my 
> formerly testing/unstable-installation all this worked fine. 
> 
> But I don't like to download this DVD-isos for testing again, and 
> install this all for a third time! And I can't do a netinstall, because 
> my wlan-card isn't recognized from debian during installation yet... 
> 
> I hope, there is a way to do a upgrade from sarge to etch?

If you have the space, make a copy on your entire Debian installation on 
another partition (all the system part, anyway.  You don't need to copy 
/home.)  Then make sure you con boot into both the original and the 
copy.  Then you can upgrade to your heart's content, knowing that you 
still have a working copy.  (make sure you have boot floppies that will 
boot you into the unupgraded system without requiring anything that's on 
the other partition, like the working code for Lilo or Grub)

When I did thie last September, it took me about a week to get my etch 
running properly.  Packages kept appearing and disappearing, having 
incompatible versions and then becomeing compatible again, and so forth.  
But once the dost-upgrade was done, regular upgrades eventually 
collected enough compatible stuff that it all started working again.

And until it did, the old sarge was still there for production work.

Oh.  Be very paranoid about boot methods.  Maybe upgrading the copy is 
the best policy, because you can make a boot floppy for the original and 
be sure it works *before* you make the copy.

-- hendrik