Re: how to update Debian OS properly
On Fri, 25 May 2012 15:57:28 +0500, Muhammad Yousuf Khan wrote:
> well, I have questions about upgrading Linux. since i have been using
> Microsoft for years the concept of upgrade I think is different from
> Linux upgrade.
>
> in a testing environment I was trying to upgrade the security patches
> and I run the command
> apt-get upgrade.
Mmm, you should run first "apt-get update" to refresh the available
packages.
> It ran fine, but at the end it upgraded my whole OS, first my test
> machine was showing Debian version 6.0.4 now after the upgrade it
> shifted to Wheezy/SID which I think is unstable.
The first thing you have to look at is the sources ("/etc/apt/
sources.list"). This is _the key_ for having a happy system :-)
The second thing is knowing what's what you want to get:
1/ Having a stable system
2/ Having a testing/sid system
For 1/ you have to point your sources to squeeze and add a security repo.
That's all.
For 2/ well, you have to point your sources to a testing or sid version
and you have to update the whole system on a regular basis to avoid
breaking things.
In my case, I only use "apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade" in both,
stable and testing distributions: the sources will make the difference
here.
> So the question are
>
> 1. how to upgrade only the security patches?
Stable versions only get security pathes (and a few of enhancements) so
this is not a problem here. For testing/sid you have to update the whole
system.
> 2. if the upgrade patch trigger any critical issue. Like any service
> like hosting, filesharing or squid got effected by the update, how come
> we know which patch cause this problem and how to remove that specific
> patch because in Microsoft I have seen that security patches and OS
> patches some time make problems when run along with ongoing services.
You can remove/revert any package by reading the apt logs and using
synaptic or aptitude to uninstall a specific package version and stick to
the desired one.
> 3. how to revert back to old OS, for example, in my case i upgraded my
> system from 6.0.4 to Wheezy/SID now want to revert things back.
I'm not sure if that will work, at least not "flawlessly"; you can fall
into a dependency hell and lots of broken packages. Anyway, by the kind
of questions you ask, I would suggest first a careful reading of the FAQ:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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