Re: Upgrading from Woody to Sarge on PowerPC
Hi Kent-
Thanks for your reply.
Kent West wrote:
>
> You'll need to run "aptitude update" prior to running "aptitude -f
> --with-recommends dist-upgrade".
> The first step goes out and gets the list of available packages; the
> next step goes and gets, not the list, but the actual packages.
I actually did do that in each case. I left that out thinking that it
went without saying that I did it but I guess not... ;-)
>
>
>>I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that initially, these
>>instructions say to use "sarge" and then later, go on to say use
>>"stable." These seem contradictory to me but I'm sure it's because I'm
>>a newbie to Debian.
>>
>>
>
> I'm unfamiliar with the instructions, but I'm confident it's a typo. If
> you want to pull from Sarge, you'll need Sarge in your sources.list.
Ok. If it's a typo then it makes more sense.
>
>
>>Next ensure that the APT source entries (in /etc/apt/sources.list) refer
>>to the 'stable' distribution and do not refer to it by its codename
>>(e.g. woody).
>>
>>
>
> Again, this should not be "stable", but rather "sarge" (or "testing" as
> recommended here, but either should work until the distributions change
> states).
Ok. I'll change that.
>
>
>>First aptitude needs to fetch a list of new and updated packages for the
>>new release. This is done by executing:
>>
>> aptitude update
>>
>>Once aptitude has information on all the available packages, the system
>>is almost ready to be fully upgraded.
>>
>> aptitude -f --with-recommends dist-upgrade
>>
>>=================
>>
>>But when I execute "aptitude update" with "sarge" in my
>>/etc/apt/sources.list file, I see this:
>>
>>=================
>>7300:~# aptitude update
>>Reading Package Lists... Done
>>Building Dependency Tree
>>Reading extended state information... Done
>>W: Couldn't stat source package list http://debian.lcs.mit.edu
>>sarge/main Packages
>>(/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.lcs.mit.edu_debian_dists_sarge_main_binary-powerpc_Packages)
>>- stat (2 No such file or directory)
>>W: Couldn't stat source package list http://debian.lcs.mit.edu
>>sarge/non-free Packages
>>(/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.lcs.mit.edu_debian_dists_sarge_non-free_binary-powerpc_Packages)
>>- stat (2 No such file or directory)
>>W: Couldn't stat source package list http://debian.lcs.mit.edu
>>sarge/contrib Packages
>>(/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.lcs.mit.edu_debian_dists_sarge_contrib_binary-powerpc_Packages)
>>- stat (2 No such file or directory)
>>W: Couldn't stat source package list http://non-us.debian.org
>>sarge/non-US/main Packages
>>(/var/lib/apt/lists/non-us.debian.org_debian-non-US_dists_sarge_non-US_main_binary-powerpc_Packages)
>>- stat (2 No such file or directory)
>>W: Couldn't stat source package list http://non-us.debian.org
>>sarge/non-US/contrib Packages
>>(/var/lib/apt/lists/non-us.debian.org_debian-non-US_dists_sarge_non-US_contrib_binary-powerpc_Packages)
>>- stat (2 No such file or directory)
>>W: Couldn't stat source package list http://non-us.debian.org
>>sarge/non-US/non-free Packages
>>(/var/lib/apt/lists/non-us.debian.org_debian-non-US_dists_sarge_non-US_non-free_binary-powerpc_Packages)
>>- stat (2 No such file or directory)
>>W: You may want to update the package lists to correct these missing files
>>=================
>>
>>
>>
>
> Ah; this means that something is wrong in the sources.list file.
> (I hate the syntax in that file. I've been using Debian for about 5
> years now, and I _still_ don't understand the syntax of that file. It's
> very picky about when and where you use spaces or / marks, etc.)
Thanks for mentioning this. If you've been using Debian for 5 years and
are still having problems with this file then I feel better about not
being able to figure this out on my own...
>
> Unless you want the source files, you can comment out the "deb-src"
> lines to make your file less complex.
Done.
>
> It may be that your mirror does not have the Sarge files; you might want
> to point do a different mirror.
The mirror seems to have sarge files. When I browse it with a web
browser, I do see sarge and testing directories and content beneath them.
>
> What I would do is return the "sources.list" file to its original form,
> and run "aptitide update". If the system updates properly, go back into
> sources.list and comment all but one line. Then change that one line so
> that instead of "stable" it reads "sarge", and try running the update
> again. If it fails, you can suspect the mirror of not having sarge
> files, or at least of not having the expected file structure. You might
> try "testing" instead of "sarge", or even "sid" or "unstable" for
> cutting-edge software.
>
My sources.list file now reads:
7300:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list|grep -v ^\#
deb http://debian.lcs.mit.edu/debian/ sarge main non-free contrib
When I update:
7300:~# aptitude update
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information... Done
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://debian.lcs.mit.edu
sarge/main Packages
(/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.lcs.mit.edu_debian_dists_sarge_main_binary-powerpc_Packages)
- stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://debian.lcs.mit.edu
sarge/non-free Packages
(/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.lcs.mit.edu_debian_dists_sarge_non-free_binary-powerpc_Packages)
- stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://debian.lcs.mit.edu
sarge/contrib Packages
(/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.lcs.mit.edu_debian_dists_sarge_contrib_binary-powerpc_Packages)
- stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: You may want to update the package lists to correct these missing files
Based on the error message, I'm missing files that aptitude expects to
find in the /var/lib/apt/lists/ directory tree. I don't know what these
files are or how to get them there. Is the error message misleading me?
I get the same result when the sources.list file reads:
7300:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list|grep -v ^\#
deb http://debian.lcs.mit.edu/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
> Another idea that just came to me: You indicate that your original
> sources.list file was pulling from CDs; now you're telling it to pull
> from the Internet. You are attached to the Internet, yes?
>
Yes, this box does have an internet connection, but good point. In
fact, browsing just now to verify my previous check of the mirror led me
to a work-around for this problem. I noticed the Packages and
Packages.gz files in those directories on the mirror, downloaded the .gz
versions, unzipped them, named them according to the apparent naming
scheme in /var/lib/apt/lists, and with those files present, aptitude
update did what I expected it to do and dist-upgrade now seems to be
chugging away.
Thanks again for your reply, Kent.
To the developers, I'm not sure why this happened. I would have thought
that aptitude would have gone out and gotten those Packages files by
itself. Instead, I had to get them by hand and put them in place and
with that done, aptitude seems to be doing what I would expect. That
may be a bug, but I really don't know.
-Kevin
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