Re: a few dumb questions about apt sources.list file contents....

[Chris Lale <chrislale@untrammelled.co.uk>]

Michael Fothergill wrote:
> Dear Debianists,
>
> Here is my apt sources.list file;
>
> [...]
>
> I want to add a line to it to get it to get software updates for Etch 
> from the web i.e. packages not security updates.....
>
> [...]

It looks like you have installed a snapshot of Etch from CDROM, but you 
now wish to follow Etch live. Comment out the "deb cdrom"  lines in 
/etc/apt/sources.list. (The package manager will no longer ask you to 
insert the discs each time.) For packages from main, non-free and 
contrib insert this line:

   deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ etch main non-free contrib


Only the "main" repository contains software that complies with the 
Debian Free Software Guidelines. For unofficial multimedia packages 
insert this line:

   deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ etch main
For security updates insert this line:

   deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free

Then update the repositories:

   # aptitude update

(Note: If you have not been using Aptitude exclusively, check that it 
does not want wrongly to remove packages (see 
http://newbiedoc.berlios.de/wiki/Aptitude_-_using_together_with_Synaptic_and_Apt-get). 
Run

   # aptitude install -sf

and if necessary fix with

   # aptitude keep-all
)


Then upgrade your system:

   # aptitude dist-upgrade

--
Chris.