Re: Etch status..?
On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 10:51:44PM EST, Greg Madden wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:22:47 -0500
> cga2000 <cga2000@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> > I need to upgrade my current sarge to something more current.
> >
> > Is this the recommended procedure -- the one less likely to provide
> > major headaches:
> >
> > 1. Install sarge on a new partition
> > 2. Wait till etch become stable.
> > 3. Do a blind upgrade.
> > 4. Customize.
[...]
> > Note:
> >
> > This is a laptop with a pcmcia NIC. Back in April, I spent over two
> > months trying to install etch but I was never able to finish the
> > install. The etch installer just did not recognize the NIC .. I was
> > never able to bring up a network connection .. as a result I ended up
> > with an etch install that I could not finalize. Since the stable etch
> > installer probably won't work any better with this laptop .. and since
> > the sarge installer did work .. I was thinking the above might be the
> > best solution.
>
> I don't know if there is a recommended procedure, but if there was one
> my guess would be to use a net-install cd and install from a mirror.
> Once installed you should not have to re-install... ever.
An additional reason is that this was originally a chown install that I
did to evaluate debian -- was a discontented Red Hat user at the time..
Turned out to be so much to my liking that it quickly became my main
environment.
But as it was meant to be a trial install, I only gave it a 2.5G
partition .. which has become a problem. So I would have to use one of
those drive partitioning tools to move things around .. I think I'd
rather do a clean install and keep the current one as a fallback if/when
things go wrong.
Especially since due to the aborted install of etch all the grub-related
stuff currently lives in that aborted install's "/" partition..
:-(
The minimum net-install of sarge + upgrade to etch is precisely what I
had in mind. What bothers me is that I have a feeling the NIC/pcmcia
issue is more linked to major changes regarding pcmcia handling in 2.6
kernels than the debian installer .. So I wouldn't be surprised if the
etch upgrade caused problems even if the sarge net-install goes
smoothly.
>
> I have been using Etch since 00.org hit v. 2.0, a year or so, while
> updating when reading the users list indicated it was safe, for my
> skill level to upgrade.
>
> The laptop pcmcia card issue is a trial an error issue,
:-)
.. gave up after two months of "trials" .. rather "trying" ..
> if Etch doesn't support it, use sarge and do a minimal install, change
> your sources list to Etch and do a full install. Use 'dpkg
> get-selections & 'dpkg set-selections to get the packages installed
> the same as the old install. man dpkg.
.. That's probably not even going to be necessary since I am quite happy
with xterm, gnu/screen, mutt, vim, and elinks. And since I ended up
installing all of these from source ..
But thanks for the tip .. There may be daemon stuff that I may have
customized after my initial sarge install.
Thanks
cga
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