Debian - Potato to Woody

[VRay]

Is it possible to upgrade from potato to woody using apt-get? If so, how would I go about doing it? Other options?

[Xsecrets]

It is definatly possible all you need to do is modify your sources.list file to point to woody unstable etc.

then you apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade, or what I would recommend is to open dselect ( I know you've heard horror stories but this should be easy) and do and update then go into select hit space to get rid of the first screen then hit enter and it will probably pop up another screen about dependancies just hit spacebar and enter agian then do install and it should take care of all dependacies for you.

Oh and I hope you have a high speed connection.

[VRay]

Thank you, worked great. Where does one get hold of the latest sources.list? Particularly, I am interested in installing kde, but cannot get apt-get to work. Not sure if my sources list is screwed, though from the errors it seems the kde stuff is not available, or I am typing the wrong command. Any help here would be great. Thanks.

[Craig McPherson]

I agree with using Dselect, but I disagree with just going in, pressing Enter, and getting out. Blind upgrades are dumb. Once you've done an "Update" in Dselect (even if you've just run an "apt-get update", you still need to run an "Update" in Dselect to force dselect to refresh its cache), go into "Select" and scroll through the list of new packages. Add all the ones you want to install. When you press enter to exit, and it offers to resolve dependencies for you, scroll through the list of what it's about to do before you accept it, to make sure it's actually acceptable to you.

IMHO, if you don't use Dselect extensively, you're NOT using Debian. You'll never find out about new packages, you'll never get the chance to handle dependencies interactively, you'll never find out about alternatives to software you're using, you'll never find out about fun new software to try out -- in short, you'll be basically using Slackware.

[lsibn]

Originally posted by Craig McPherson:
<STRONG>in short, you'll be basically using Slackware.</STRONG>
Ooh, that's hitting just a hair below the belt... :D

[Craig McPherson]

Originally posted by lsibn:
<STRONG>Ooh, that's hitting just a hair below the belt... :D</STRONG>

No it's not -- Slackware users don't have hair below the belt! :)

[Xsecrets]

Yes deffinately you have to do an update in dselect before it will refresh it's cache. I intended those as two seperage courses of action either do it all in apt or do it all in dselect sorry if it was not clear.

And I have to agree with you craig dselect absolutely rocks I hear people ***** about it all the time and I just can't understand why unless they never took the time to read that intro page that tells you all the commands.

[lsibn]

Originally posted by Craig McPherson:
<STRONG>No it's not -- Slackware users don't have hair below the belt! :)</STRONG>
Wow, I thought I had the trump card. I bow before your l33t sk!11z.

All I can say is...wow.