Submitted by ggarron on Wed, 12/05/2007 - 10:35
Maybe a lot of people already know this, but I will write it down here, in case anyone forget it, or of somebody does not know already.
To upgrade the Linux Debian Stable Etch to testing Lenny, just need to follow these two steps.
1. Edit sources.list
sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
and change all words etch to lenny, or stable to testing
2. Update and upgrade
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install apt dpkg aptitude
sudo aptitude full-upgrade
that is all, this also work if you want to go from lenny to sid, just change your sources.list accordingly.
It is also better if you start your Debian Linux in text mode, so GDM or KDM could be restarted without problems.
You may be interested in reading this.
How to find a fast debian mirror
and this:
Install a .deb cache for Debian if you need to upgrade more than one PC in your network, to avoid big bandwidth consume.
When lenny is moved to stable and your sources.list has testing it will move to the next testing distribution whether your system is ready or not. Using lenny instead of testing will minimize your chance of updates breaking the system as versions progress.
You are right, thanks for making us note that, it is a really important point to take care about.
Guillermo Garron
Change testing to lenny and you're done.
your hints are not really sufficient
EG my sources list contains only
"deb http://ftp.cz.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free"
there is no etch word in it.
i am getting lenny updates, i just need to find out if full upgrade will do the trick.
How is aptitude recommended over apt-get?
aptitude is a front-end TO apt-get tools.
Here is a real world example of how I successfully upgrade Etch boxes to lenny
edit /etc/sources.list ----> replace every occurrence of "etch" w/"lenny"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apt dpkg
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Same exact affect as the instructions given, only somewhat simpler :-P
aptitude will be upgraded with the dist-upgrade
in all reality _only_ apt need be upgraded prior to the dist-upgrade
Actually, I would recommend wajig for anyone that does package work from the command line.
O dang
This broke my system and to to check I reinstalled etch and did it again on a clean install and still very flakey thats why it's testing I guess, so be prepared for a borked system. If you don't care then just download the netinstall cd for Lenny (160ish mb). It wont take much longer as you will be downloading at least 600mb on a dist-update anyway. Then you get a clean Lenny!!! yipeee ;)
Lenny is very stable - more so than most other Distro 'releases'
however the process of 'Dist Upgrading', often results in a borked system , for fairly obvious reasons.
If Lenny is 'stable' on a clean install - its stable ;)
@dannybuntu
how about viewing your /etc/apt/sources.list if you're using debian.
Hi, may I know the default sources.list for etch?
Yeah! Its really true..
aptitude is recommended over apt-get.