Re: Debian Downgrade question

[Bill MacAllister <debian-user@macallister.grass-valley.ca.us>]

Jamie,

Thanks very much for this.  It when mostly as planned.  There were two 
problems that I hit.

 1. There was a problem downgrading passwd---the error message
    said there was a problem over writing /usr/sbin/add-shell.
    The error report indicated that passwd as also in debianutils
    that was also scheduled for installation.  I went to the cache
    directory can installed debianutils by hand with dpkg and
    restarted restarted the process with the command apt-get -f
    install.

 2. Then some time later apt-get started getting the error:

      dpkg: config error: unknown option log: Success

    I found a note on the web that recommended removing the
    /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg file.  I just commented out the log line
    in the file and re-issued the apt-get -f install command.

When the install of the packages in the cache finished I went back and 
re-issued the apt-get -u dist-upgrade.  It finished cleanly this time.  At 
this ping my attempt at shutdowning the system just hung.  I ended up 
bringing up another console session, issuing multiple sync's and then 
punching the reset button.  The system came up cleanly.

The only question that I have at this point is should I remove the 
preferences from /etc/apt?  I don't really understand what I did here.  Can 
you point me to a document that describes what you suggested?

Thanks again,

Bill

--On Friday, January 20, 2006 10:29:33 PM -0500 James Strandboge 
<jamie@strandboge.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-01-20 at 16:35 -0800, Bill MacAllister wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > On one of the debian systems I manage I installed sarge before it was
> > moved  to stable by referening testing in my sources.list.  I completely
> > forgot  about this and recently issued an apt-get update; apt-get
> > upgrade.  The  system continues to work, but has trouble booting now.  I
> > would like to  revert to the stable tree at this point.  What will
> > happen if I just modify  the sources.list and issue an apt-get update;
> > apt-get upgrade at this  point?  Is apt-get smart enough to go back like
> > list?
>
> Logout of X if you are in it.
>
> Adjust /etc/apt/sources.list to use 'stable' or 'sarge'.
>
> Add this to /etc/apt/preferences:
> Package: *
> Pin: release a=stable
> Pin-Priority: 1001
>
> Run 'apt-get update'
>
> Run 'apt-get -u dist-upgrade'
>
> That last one will downgrade your machine to stable.  Once it is done,
> you should reboot.
>
> You will probably have a number of packages left over from testing that
> don't exist in sarge, so use deborphan to find out which ones they are,
> and manually remove them (or run 'deborphan | xargs dpkg --purge').
>
> I have done the above a couple of times, and if you are running gnome,
> you may also want to run:
> apt-get remove --purge libglib2.0-0
> apt-get install gnome gdm
>
> The first command will pull out almost all gnome apps and libraries, and
> the second installs them again.  IIRC nautilus in particular had
> problems with downgrading.
>
> --
> James Strandboge
> jamie@strandboge.com
>
>
> --
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Bill