Re: Upgrading to Jessie

I'm not sure what you mean by "it was also hooked up to wheezy updates". Keeping both sets of repositories would be useful if a package you require was dropped from the current "testing" and even then you might be better off compiling it for your current system. If the wheezy package has dependencies, and most do, then it could fail at any time.

I have just installed from a weekly testing DVD. The installation process (not me) created the following sources.list file:

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Jessie_ - Official Snapshot amd64 DVD Bin
ary-1 20140908-06:10]/ jessie contrib main

deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Jessie_ - Official Snapshot amd64 DVD Binar
y-1 20140908-06:10]/ jessie contrib main

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie main
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie main

deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib

# jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib

# jessie-backports, previously on backports.debian.org
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-backports main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-backports main contrib

Are you saying that this sources.list file created in the installation process if I continue with it unchanged will result in my new installation becoming Debian stable (the new stable being Jessie as it is updated), and, that if I want to be "testing" permanently, then this default sources.list file would need to be edited and would have entries pointing to the testing repositories and security updates (would they be testing ones or the Jessie ones?) pasted into it, and, the jessie-updates entry the jessie main entry and the backports stuff should all be removed and you would end up with this:

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

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

and nothing else in the sources.list file?

I used the debian source.list generator web site (http://debgen.simplylinux.ch/) to generate the above two entries.

I did it by choosing the option for testing, (GB as country for the mirror), main, contrib, non free, security and the 64 bit option.

It has the option to request the source files and updates as well.

When I tried to upgrade to Jessie testing myself I used the debian source generator to make the sources.list file the last time I tried to fix the system before I gave up and reinstalled.

When I did it, I did it as above but I also checked the updates option.

So the jessie updates entry was also added to the sources.list file.

I think that could well have been my undoing.

I need to read up on what backports do a bit.

Thanks for taking the time to help me with this.

Regards

Michael Fothergill

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 9:54 PM, Gary Dale <garydale@torfree.net> wrote:

On 18/09/14 02:11 PM, Michael Fothergill wrote:

If your /etc/apt/sources.list file refers to your current distribution as "stable" then once Jessie becomes the new "stable" then apt-get update followed by apt-get dist-upgrade will work.

If your sources.list file calls it "wheezy" then you need to change it to "jessie" before doing the apt-gets.

If you want to keep upgrading to the latest "testing" distribution, then change "stable" or "wheezy" to "testing" and do the apt-gets.

Please can I ask a dumb question here. My sources.list file was set to testing and it also was hooked up to wheezy updates. Was that unhelpful to me once wheezy became stable?

Also, if you would continue being "testing" as I had tried to do (but ended up having to reinstall as testing) was it right of me to keep the testing repository links in there and change the wheezy updates to Jessie updates as I did.

Was I doing something wrong there that contributed to me not being able to continue as testing without reinstalling?

Thanks

Michael Fothergill

I'm not sure what you mean by "it was also hooked up to wheezy updates". Keeping both sets of repositories would be useful if a package you require was dropped from the current "testing" and even then you might be better off compiling it for your current system. If the wheezy package has dependencies, and most do, then it could fail at any time.

My advice is don't mix stable and testing. Use backports if you need a newer package than stable contains or stick with testing and pull something down from Sid if a testing package you need breaks. Remember, testing is not guaranteed to work.

I personally prefer to always do a dist-upgrade since it is a more complete upgrade than the normal one. If your repositories always point to testing, this will keep you current. Other people prefer to just do an upgrade, claiming it is safer. However you might miss major changes, such as a switch from OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice.

If you didn't do a dist-upgrade since Jessie came out, you could be running the older wheezy packages as part of your system. Not recommended.

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