> > > >2. Upgrade to Etch or Sid. If you have a desktop, that's not too > > scary. > > > > > 1. When the debian page says 'depends on such and such other packages', > aren't they going to mess my sarge install? I mean, if this is a sid > page referring to sid packages, I am not supposed to try to install > these on my sarge, am I (because I already have the sarge versions of > everything)? > > 2. Yes, I thought of doing this a zillion times. Question is, I have > seen troubled ppl looking for help over a broken/messed system for one > reason or another. Fairly put, it doesn't happen all the time (and > mainly with brazilian users at debian-users-portuguese, that apparently > can't read english docs easily -- debian portuguese documentation is > good, but reading english would help a lot). I find myself always > postponing this move. My current sarge install is 2 years old, and I > have installed a lot of things without decently documenting what I did. > If something breaks its gonna be a pain to track it. I know there's dpkg > --set-selections/dpkg --get-selections if needed. I'd rather have a > testing machine... > How much is etch ahead of sarge? which one you run? > Bruno, I've been running sid for nearly two years with no REAL problems as my main work machine. I do mostly business type stuff -- word proc., email, browsing, accounting and little multi-media stuff now and then. It works really well. The main thing is to use apt-listbugs and watch debian-user for potential problems before doing an upgrade. Also, it pays to watch the list of upgradeable packages very closely. If there is any kind of big move happening, I'll usually postpone my upgrade for a week or two to see what happens. If a big set of upgrades causes a big spurt of activity on debian-user, then I'll wait even a little longer for things to sort themselves out. I probably do an upgrade on a roughly weekly basis though occaisionaly I'll wait as long as a month (like when xorg moved in...). my understanding is that in sid things break more often, but are fixed much faster than in testing. If something breaks in testing it can be a long time before it comes back. If you're nervous about taking the plunge, maybe you could dual boot sarge and sid for a while? also, I think you have to be careful using --get|set-selections across releases as package names change... ymmv etc. A
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