Re: unable to apt-get an older system

[Lisi <lisi.reisz@gmail.com>]

On Friday 13 May 2011 05:30:44 Jim Pazarena wrote:
> I have:
> deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main non-free contrib
>
> which dies (apt-get update) on:
> Get:6 http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/contrib Release [98B]
> Fetched 8830kB in 1m56s (76.1kB/s)
> Reading Package Lists... Error!

I understood that you didn't want to upgrade - but you have been updating your 
database with Squeeze, Debian 6, the current stable: i.e. skipping Lenny 
(current Old Stable) completely.  It's lucky that your apt-get update hung, 
since you would have hosed your system if you had upgraded from that database 
without reading teh release notes and going via Lenny.

You will find the various Etch packages at:

CDs etc.:
http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/debian-installer/

sources.list:
For Free Software:
deb http://archive.debian.org/debian etch main

For Sources
deb-src http://archive.debian.org/debian etch main

I don't know where the Etch contrib and non-free repositories are nor whether 
they still exist.

Once you have edited your sources list, you will need to update your apt 
database with these repositories, but you will need to get rid of the Squeeze 
data first, but I have never edited the apt datbase and that don't know how 
to do it.

Lisi