Re: upgrading to slink
On Wed, 2 Dec 1998, E.L. Meijer (Eric) wrote:
> >
> > I see no upgrade notes for slink.
>
> That's right, it is not released yet.
>
> > For hamm, these upgrade notes reside in
> > .../hamm/hamm/upgrade-i386/README-upgrade
> > Usually, I just use dpkg to install whatever packages I want from the
> > upgrade distribution. For example, I might install a newer gimp from slink.
> > Since I wouldn't have upgraded the base packages, I learned that using
> > dpkg prematurely can cause little problems.
> > Upgrading from rex to bo: I EVENTUALLY HAD TO REINSTALL FROM SCRATCH.
>
> I did this, without problems, but only after bo had been released.
>
> > Upgrading from bo to hamm: I EVENTUALLY HAD TO REINSTALL FROM SCRATCH.
>
> I did this too, and had to fix some bugs in the upgrade script by
> hand, but eventually succeeded. I agree that this upgrade procedure was
> by no means easy for someone without more extensive debian/unix
> knowledge.
>
I chose to install from scratch because I had a good idea of how Debian
Linux worked and wanted to change some things; partitions mainly, moved HD
to another computer.
> > Upgrading from hamm to slink: WHAT CAN I EXPECT.
>
> If you had trouble upgrading before, and could not fix it yourself or
> with help from this list THEN DONT TRY TO UPGRADE TO AN UNSTABLE/FROZEN
> DISTRIBUTION.
>
I started to download the slink distribution and install parts as I
downloaded them. There were some dependency problems, but mainly a problem
with libstdc++2.* packages. I thought installing other packages would
work, but it only made the matters worse. There are <many> other e-mails
in this list about "libstdc++ : __register_frame_info" breaking many
packages. Since I have Netscape that uses the old 2.8 libs, I installed
both 2.8 and 2.9 packages. Both had problems. After ftp'ing older
packages, I had to dpkg --install both since dselect was broken!
Moral of the story...
If you are new and can't work around problems, then wait until it becomes
stable.
Here are the broken packages:
size broken Next "unbroken" release
93182 libstdc++2.8_2.90.29-1.deb ???
95086 libstdc++2.9_2.91.58-5.deb libstdc++2.9_2.91.59-1.deb
If you look on the bug list, there is a write-up from the
maintainer. If you have a problem, check the bug list and see if it's been
reported. If not, then report it.
> > With no instructions, I certainly will not use raw dpkg to add packages
> > from slink to my current hamm distribution --
> > unless of course "dependencies" prevent this (do they now?).
dselect works fine for me, except when it doesn't work. Then I had to use
dpkg.
>
> Dependencies do not protect you from broken packages. Slink has not
> been announced as being stable, so it is known to contain broken
> packages. In other words: upgrade now and be assured of getting some
> broken packages (well, almost assured). I think if there is no real
> compelling reason to upgrade, it is best to wait for slink to be
> released, and then wait a little longer after that and watch this list
> carefully to see what problems could be expected. And please don't
> shout on this list, we're all fellow users and volunteers.
>
> HTH,
> Eric, who is typing this on a bo system, since it is perfectly capable
> of what he needs it for.
>
>
> --
> E.L. Meijer (tgakem@chem.tue.nl) | tel. office +31 40 2472189
> Eindhoven Univ. of Technology | tel. lab. +31 40 2475032
> Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (TAK) | tel. fax +31 40 2455054
>
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