Re: Next step?

[Heather <star@betelgeuse.starshine.org>]

> Ok I will give Sawfish and Gnome a try. A few more questions then :)
> 
> If I install sawfish-gnome, does that meen that I have also installed
> Gnome, or do I need to install Gnome separate?
> 
> What are the difference between Testing and Unstable?

Testing/Woody uses a fairly current glibc, and more modern code than 
Stable/Potato, but isn't always the most recent.  It's usually fairly current
but things in the Testing setup are put in when it is believed they won't 
give the rest of the system headaches.  It -might- ... that's why it's 
Testing ... but it's destined to become the next Stable.  Unstable is likely
to break every once in a while, in minor but strange ways, not because they
are trying to break things ;) but because the individual packages have only
been checked against less things.

I'd say for the layman, the main difference is, you can probably trust regular
doses of 'apt-get dist-upgrade' on Testing, but I wouldn't do that on unstable
without having a notepad handy and expecting to send bug reports once in a 
while.

> Should I upgrade to testing/unstable first, or install sawfish first
> (will sawfish upgrade together with the rest of my system)?

I'm not sure the order matters.  Yes, it will be tagged for upgrade with
everything else.

As a laptop user I *deeply* recommend:

(Get your network connection solidly established, and expect to be there
 for a long while.)
	apt-get update
	apt-get -d dist-upgrade
	apt-get -d alien
(This will download all the needed packages to your local apt cache.  Enjoy
your coffee while the netlink blinkenlights flash and the disk chugs. When
you get your prompt back it will tell you it completed in download only mode.
You can disconnect from the network now.)

Now, since in a major distro version change, I'm a bit gunshy after having 
been bit by perl being so weird, I'd do it in portions.  I think this is
what I was dreaming of when they started babbling about "package pools" but
I haven't seen signs of it at the sysadmin level, except for "task-*" which
already existed, but whose categories aren't always what I'm thinking of.  
Anyways:
	apt-get install glibc locales libstdc++ glibc-dev
	apt-get install alien
(This has the side effect of tagging all the major perl parts, many of which 
have changed names.  It's a nice program to have around, anyway.)

At your option use one of the curses frontends (TUIs ?) to upgrade parts of 
X you consider critical. Check that X still works.  Fix it if it's not.
(note: when you upgrade apt it will also want to upgrade your TUI.  My success
at upgrading console-apt has varied.  aptitude has been ok though.)

If you are the sort who doesn't hang out near AC power as often as you'd like,
continue to use aptitude (for example) to tag things in batches, reducing your
chance of having to head out while the thing is busy tweaking something 
important.  Otherwise after you've got libc, perl and X settled in I consider
it safe to dist-upgrade the rest.  Especially if you trust your suspend/resume
mechanism.  Oh yeah, you might want to put apm on the list of things to tag 
early, although to be honest, it's not very complicated nor changed much, so
it goes quickly.

IMHO dist-upgrade works better for keeping a distro up-to-date within its scope
than for the long jump across flavors.  But this will surely be solved when
Woody goes into freeze (whatever point in the future that might be) towards 
becoming the next Stable.

* Heather Stern * star@ many places...