Re: Ubuntu to Debian

[Curtis Vaughan <curtis@npc-usa.com>]

Brooks R. Robinson wrote:

> Greetings oh most knowledgeable list,
>  
> I recently purchased a new fancy schmancy Dell a couple of months ago, 
> and I have been delinquent in installing Linux on it.  So, I recently 
> purchased an additional hard drive and attempted to put Debian on it 
> (as God intended).  Sarge didn't want to recognize my hardware and Sid 
> just plain crapped out.  I tried to do a Knoppix install, but I don't 
> like their one big partition methodology.  I ended up putting the base 
> "server" install of Ubuntu 5.10 "The Breezy Badger" on it (which was 
> also quite the pain the the keester, for the record I hate initrd).  
> So I have a semi-usable system, finally accomplished last night.
>  
> Now for the question: Can I, without too much heartburn, upgrade my 
> install the Etch or Sid?  Is it as simple as changing my sources.list, 
> doing and apt-get update and an apt-get dist-upgrade?  I'm sure I'll 
> end up with a bunch of cruft, but I'd rather be on Debian proper than 
> Ubuntu.  Any thoughts would be helpful.
>  
> Please CC me as I am not on the list.
>  
> Thanks,
>  
> Brooks
>  

Just to put my 2 cents in.

I remember when Ubuntu was still in an earlier phase (about a year ago), 
I did just what you wanted to do. But in order to do it, I used the 
package manager to strip out pretty much everything. Then I rewrote 
sources.list to point to debian package lists, apt-get update, apt-get 
install dpkg, apt and apt-utils. Then apt-get update. Then I chose the 
packages I wanted and installed them.

Something like that. Everything else I tried resulted in so many 
dependency problems, as I recall.

Good luck!

Curtis