Static apt for upgrading old Debian releases?

["J.A. Bezemer" <costar@panic.et.tudelft.nl>]

[Cc'd to -boot because they seem responsible for _documenting_ upgrade
procedures]

Hi!

Some time ago, over at debian-cd@lists, we were discussing the upgrade of
older Debian versions (say, 1.3.1 to 2.2). Someone got the very clever idea
that this would be doable easily with a statically compiled apt-get, apt-cdrom
and dpkg(?). Q: is this possible/can you provide this? Just a package without
any depends, so that it installs everywhere. The version number should be "a
little lower" than the regular potato apt, and the static version could be
put on "Hold" during the upgrade if necessary. This would then also be the
preferred way to upgrade for example 2.1r0 which doesn't have a cdrom-capable
apt. If someone can produce an apt-static.deb, I might be able to test it on
some systems (I've got a complete backup of my old 1.3.1r8 system somewhere).


Regards,
  Anne Bezemer