This page exists as an aid for working through the issues with the sarge->etch upgrade path, by providing a current picture of the recommended approaches, and their pros and cons.
See also the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2007/03/msg00776.html latest discussion] on the mailing lists.
Method "C"
aptitude unmarkauto openoffice.org vim
- for desktop installs openoffice.org used to be pulled in by openoffice.org-bin which no longer exists
- for desktop installs vim used to be pulled in through vim-gtk, but apparently nothing depends on that anymore
if a 2.6 kernel is installed:?BRaptitude unmarkauto kernel-image-2.6.8-[<abi>-]<flavor>
- needed because otherwise the dist-upgrade may try to uninstall it if the kernel was installed through a kernel-image meta package
- edit sources.list to point to Etch
aptitude update
- we should warn about the "errors" aptitude insists on printing here
aptitude upgrade
- could also be switched with next step; advantage of doing the next step early could be that glibc is upgraded early; OTOH, doing easy/safe stuff first also makes sense
aptitude install initrd-tools libfam0 xlibmesa-glu
- all if already installed
- last two not needed if fixed in Etch
aptitude dist-upgrade
aptitude update (get gpg sigs)
aptitude install linux-image-2.6-*
- if not already pulled in by a kernel-image meta package
Some clean up which will easy etch->lenny upgrades:
aptitude unmarkauto linux-image-2.6-<flavor>
aptitude purge kernel-image-2.6-<flavor>
Test case 1
Package set
sarge chroot built with Prio: standard and above, with these additions:
- apt-get install lvm2 kernel-image-2.4.27-3-686
- tasksel install desktop
Results
Success. 151 packages removed; all sarge-only, except for akode and hotplug.