Hello, Now that the xserver-xorg package in Etch depends once again on X modules xserver-xorg-video-all and xserver-xorg-input-all (rather than just recommending them), the following Sarge -> Etch upgrade path seems to work for me. I've now tested this on two systems that each have a fair bit of Gnome installed. Unfortunately it seems one cannot use aptitude in a set of general upgrade instructions, since in some cases upgrading it causes a lot of other packages to be removed undesirably. It would therefore be nice if Debian could make available new versions of aptitude backported to libs in the old stable release. 0) [edit /etc/apt/sources.list to point at Etch] 1) apt-get update 2) apt-get install initrd-tools 3) apt-get install apt 4) apt-get update 5) apt-get dist-upgrade 6) apt-get install aptitude 7) aptitude dist-upgrade 8) aptitude install <whatever got removed undesirably> 9) aptitude (run interactively and get rid of obsolete packages) 10) install new kernel package(s) Remarks: Step 2 works around the conflict between new libc6 and old initrd-tools. In step 3 aptitude may end up getting removed. Trying to "apt-get install aptitude" at this point was easy on one of my test systems; but on the other one, it would have resulted in much of Gnome going away for whatever reason. Step 4 is to obtain the Release.gpg files with the new secure APT. Downgrading back to Sarge at any point before 5) is not too hard as long as one removes all the new python2.4 packages and is careful about the fact that the new tzdata package replaces numerous files in the old libc6 package (necessitating several rounds of "dpkg --force-overwrite --install /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6*.deb"). In step 5, capplets, gnome-volume-manager, hal, hotplug and inkscape end up getting removed (along with an unofficial mplayer package and a large number of obsolete compiler, interpreter, library, and libdevel packages, about 60 total). This is however better than what happens if one were to try "apt-get install aptitude" at this point. This is the list of removed packages after "apt-get dist-upgrade" on the more problematic of my two test machines: > The following packages will be REMOVED > aspell-bin blas-dev capplets g77-3.3 gnome-volume-manager hal hotplug > inkscape lapack-dev libcojets1-dev libdps1 libfltk1.1c102 libgc1 > libgeant1-dev libggi-target-x libggi2 libgii0 libgii0-target-x > libgksuui1.0-0 libglibmm-2.4-1 libgtkmm-2.4-1 libherwig59-dev > libisajet758-dev libkuipx11-1-dev libmagick++6 libmagick6 libmathlib1-dev > libmodplug0 libnautilus2-2 libnewt0.51 libostyle1 libpaw1-dev > libpdflib804-dev libphtools1-dev libpstoedit0 libqt3-dev libqt3c102-mt > libsigc++-2.0-0 libstlport4.6 libtiffxx0 libxft1 libxklavier8 > mozilla-firefox-gnome-support mplayer netkit-inetd ntp-server nvidia-glx-dev > openoffice.org-bin openoffice.org-debian-files openoffice.org-l10n-en pm-dev > pstoedit python2.3 python2.3-dev python2.3-gtk2 python2.3-iconvcodec > python2.3-imaging python2.3-numeric python2.3-tk t1lib1 xfree86-common xlibs > xlibs-dev xserver-common and this is the list of packages to be removed on the other test machine (interesting items include abiword-gnome, grace, capplets): > The following packages will be REMOVED: > abiword-doc abiword-gnome abiword-plugins blas-dev capplets g77-2.95 g77-3.3 > grace lapack-dev libdps1 libenchant1 libgc1 libkuipx11-1-dev libmagick6 > libmathlib1-dev libmyspell3 libnautilus2-2 libnewt0.51 libostyle1 > libpaw1-dev libstlport4.6 libwpd8 libxft1 libxklavier8 netkit-inetd > openoffice.org-bin openoffice.org-debian-files openoffice.org-l10n-en > python2.3 xfree86-common xlibs xserver-common If one still has aptitude, one may run "aptitude --without-recommends dist-upgrade" for step 5 instead of "apt-get dist-upgrade". On my test machine where aptitude was still available at this point, "aptitude dist-upgrade" (with recommends) never converged to a solution for the large number of conflicts, but --without-recommends worked OK. Step 6 is obviously only needed if aptitude was removed by step 3. Step 7 is for picking up Recommends and/or removing unused obsolete packages. Users should take note of whatever gets removed in steps 3-7 (hopefully not too much) that is still available in Etch, and reinstall it at the end. Hope this is useful information to someone. regards, -- Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty@princeton.edu> Physics Department WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/ Princeton University GPG: public key ID 4F83C751 Princeton, NJ 08544
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature