Chris Bannister wrote: > Vincent Lefevre wrote: > > During important upgrades such as locales, I avoid doing things > > like starting an xterm... Usually, already running applications > > You do system upgrades WITH X running? :( One of my machines is an Unstable Sid system as a desktop. I am using it now. So that I can find bugs and report them and fix what problems I can fix. This is a matter of self interest so that the next release will be good for me to use. On this machine I am running X and daily I do 'upgrade' followed by 'dist-upgrade' from a terminal running under X. On any given day it might be the same as a full major release upgrade such as from Debian 6 to 7. I expect that to work. If it does not then I deal with the problem. I installed the recent X upgrades in Sid from the past week just a few minutes ago. > If there is a problem with the upgrade of X, you could end up with a > borked system, or one that is going to be a PITA to fix. I am drifting to the Sid topic, which I acknowledge you weren't talking about as I believe you were talking about Stable releases, but Sid is related since it is the testing ground for the next release. I expect upgrades to work. Of course anyone running Sid should be expecting to either have the skills to deal with the problem or to be learning the skills to deal with the problem. Having said that I still expect upgrades to work while running under X. If not I will deal with it. I can't remember the last time a non-buggy X upgrade broke X. By non-buggy I mean where the package didn't get improved to avoid that particular breakage in a later upload. Mistakes have otherwise happened though. But I never do major upgrades such as from Debian 6 to 7 from X with X running. It is possible to walk a tight rope without a net. But sometimes the wind is gusty and blowing and I am not a tight rope walker. Better to put the odds in my favor. I always do major upgrades from outside of X. If I am over the net then I do them inside a screen session. (Except screen needed special precautions last time because screen itself was a known incompatible upgrade.) With screen even if there is a network problem I can resume the upgrade session. NetworkManager used to bring the network offline and I have saved many upgrades by getting on the console and resuming it. But as far as X goes for most people that means GNOME (or KDE or other) and those are very large with a very large number of dependencies. In many cases it is better to simplify the installation by removing as much of that extra layer of stuff as possible to make the major upgrade go easier. Then after upgrading installing whatever is on the new system (XFCE or LXDE for instance) onto the new system cleanly. Bob
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