Hello. Just some info for those considering upgrading from Sarge to
Etch (or Sid). I just upgraded my system from Debian Sarge, to Debian
Sid. I initially set out to upgrade to Etch, but circumstances drove me
to Sid. I changed the repositories in my sources.list from sarge to
etch, and proceded. After a while it gave an error reading, claiming
that to upgrade udev, the kernel image had to be greater than 2.6.12 (I
was using 2.6.8). When trying to install the 2.6.15 kernel image, it
complained that a newer version of udev was required. The xserver
protested, committing hare-kare, and I was left using Lynx, and Pico
(not the cutting edge software I had been anticipating, needless to
say.) Running "apt-get -f install" did nothing. I then altered the
sources from Etch, to Sid, and, giving me hope, various changes
occurred. However, it left me with the same message, that the new udev
was required. I rebooted using the 2.4.27 kernel image, and ran
"apt-get -f install", and, strangely enough, it worked. The new kernel
installed, udev installed, the xserver came back to life, and I ended up
in an XFCE desktop, with my home directory in tact. An unexpected
surprise, to be sure, though I'm quite happy to have salvaged my system.
I'm hoping one day that I'll be samrt and actually make a back-up of my
system before trying stuff like upgrading again. My OpenOffice.org 2.0
(converted from alien) seems to have vanished. I think my gnome desktop
environment is a casualty as well, but at least my home directory still
exists.