Test of upgrade from Woody -> Sarge
Just a couple of quick notes: the process in general was fairly smooth,
though I wouldn't want to have to do it for more than a couple of
machines at a time.
Hardware: Home build, Celeron 1200, 640M of memory, 40G disk, ATI Radeon video
with 128M memory, 3Com 3C905, cheap CMP soundcard, genuine MS PS2 mouse,
17" Dell monitor
Pre-existing software: Dual booting Windows XPHome. Woody replaced Kubuntu on
second partition, allowed installation to reformat this and swap and to
overwrite GRUB with LILO.
[Simplest partition layout: 8G for windows as /dev/hda1, 30G for
Debian / as /dev/hda2, rest for swap as /dev/hda3]
Installation media: Double sided DVD from a couple of years ago from Linux
Emporium / internal network from own mirror.
Woody install: Installed using bf24 so 2.4 kernel - fairly uneventful,
used tasksel for desktop environment and UNIX server profiles.
This meant GNOME and KDE and a fairly full desktop.
Video too new for Woody: X could be configured badly but KDM kept
looping so unusable. Exim3 set up for "satellite network" with mail
handled elsewhere. Updates automatically brought down via ftp from
security.debian.org so installed system basically 3.0r5
Updating process:
Manual edit of /etc/apt/sources.list and apt-get update ; apt-get
dist-upgrade. [NOTE: I'm fairly sure the archive layout changed for
non-US/main between Woody -> Sarge and I had problems here. Could be a
show stopper as not immediately obvious what to change]
Dual boot still worked !! [Previously, disk had had GRUB: LILO "just worked",
over-wrote stuff correctly and booted Windows XP fine. One major source
of worry gone :) ]
Lots of packages failed on first run: repeated apt-get dist-upgrades
gradually sorted out the mess. KDE caused huge problems: in the end, I
had to manually run apt-get install kdm, then apt-get install konqueror,
then apt-get install kdesktop to gradually get rid of conflicts with KDE2.
In the general run of things:
Updates to libc produced sane warning messages and stopped/started
services correctly. Exim3 -> Exim4 produced warning that config might
break and configuration needed but that configuration worked correctly.
Exim4 config dialog worked well. Locales correctly handled.
X Windows stabilised - initial login via KDM brings up GNOME :( Needed
to use menu button to force initial KDE :) Usual no sound and nasty
/dev/dsp message because user not added to audio group by default.
Added user to audio group, Ctrl-Alt-Bksp, and sound came up fine.
Update to kernel 2.6 - message about initrd, so moved to second VT and
updated /etc/lilo.conf halfway through process (as usual :) ).
Reboot and X Windows breaks with frozen cursor in middle of screen
because of psmouse.ko rather than psmouse.
Insmod /lib/kernel/*/psmouse.ko fixes this but a general fix for the new
modules would be good.
Didn't try: changing LILO to GRUB.
Overall impression: exceedingly good, given that the task is
non-trivial. Total time to install a fully loaded Woody system from
scratch and then clean update in place with one reboot - approximately 1 1/2
hours. Doing a Woody install again also made me realise just how far
we've come in the install process and how much I've come to rely on the
new installer "just working".
HTH,
Andy
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