Re: upgrading from Sarge to Etch on an old PC...
On Mon, 25 Dec 2006, Michael Fothergill wrote:
> So I am now interested to try out gnome rather than xfce4 on the old PC when I
> install Etch.....
I wouldn't. With that kind of hardware, a window manager would be much
better. Something like icewm, fluxbox, etc.
> But I have a few questions.
>
> If I upgrade from Sarge to Etch, will it automatically replace
> Xfree4.3.0 with xorg?
Yes. I just did it and it was a mess, i had to go to Sid and then go
down to Etch. Later on, i went back to Sid and then Sidux but that's
another story. :)
> I have looked at the docmentation on etch testing but although it
> talks about a lot of other things I couldn't find a list of commands
> to install the common packages used in a desktop install.
APT-HOWTO
http://www.us.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/index.en.html
The best thing for an old box, is to do a minimal install, skip the
pakages section, and after you're thru, install what you need. Example:
# apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
# apt-get install xserver-xorg-core menu aterm <your favorite wm> sudo
zip unzip bzip2 <your favorite firewall> mutt elinks xfe xzgv xchat
mozilla-firefox etc, configure your firewall and reboot, login, startx
and you're in like Flynn.
> In the case of Sarge I know that apt-get install gnome kde works for the
> window manager and apt-get install x-window-system work fine.
KDE and Gnome are "desktop environments" NOT window managers. Each one
uses a different window manager, kwin and Metacity respectively.
If you can't live without Gnome, install 'gnome-core' which is lighter
and will help your old box.
> But my worry is that Etch may contain other packages that require a somewhat
> different
> set of commands.
Nah.
> I could just wipe Sarge and install Etch from scratch to get around this
> problem, but I would like to try and make the upgrade work.
Try the dist-upgrade first, you might get lucky and the bugs might be
squatched or youcan always start from scratch.
greetings,
macondo
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KISS Protocol: Keep It Simple, Stupid
PII 266 128 MB RAM - Ratpoison - Sidux
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