On Fri, 12 Dec 2008, Paul M Foster wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 01:28:05PM -0500, Eben King wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Can dist-upgrade _only_ take me to Debian (which version?), or can it do
>> other things as well? How does it decide?
>>
>> I use a custom-compiled kernel. I guess backing it up, then letting
>> apt-get do its thing, then restoring it, should do the trick.
>
> Where dist-upgrade takes you to depends on your apt config file. If
> you're running on, say, Potato, and you do a dist-upgrade, it will bring
> you up to whatever is the current stable (Etch?).
What are their relative positions?
> However, if you change your apt config to track testing or unstable, it
> will bring you all the way up to the current testing/unstable (with the
> resultant chaos).
Are they the same, or is one more refined than the other? How do I change
the "track"?
> Dist-upgrade is tricky. It can go smoothly, or you can wind up with an
> unusable machine. Just depends. On sunspots. My experience with
> dist-upgrade is fraught with horror stories. I prefer to upgrade
> subsystems one at a time. Debian can also have a tendency to show
> conflicts when mass-upgrading like this. This package will conflict with
> that package, and the only way to handle it is to
> uninstall them both and attempt to reinstall them individually. Of
> course, not all upgrades go that way. Yours might not.
>
> Upgrading your distro could make your custom kernel prone to panics and
> crashes. If your upgrade changes libraries (particularly the C
> libraries), your kernel could be unstable when it runs. If your upgrade
> is going to go anywhere near core libraries, I'd recommend recompiling
> it.
That, and if I have time re-do it from the beginning, with an "official"
config file and about the same version stock kernel.
> And building a script file to do this simply the next time you have
> to. You don't have to worry so much about specific packages upgrading or
> Gnome/KDE upgrades, but some of the other more basic libraries could do
> you in on an upgrade.
I wrote a script that runs "make menuconfig", files away the .config after
letting you name it, compiles the kernel and modules, and installs them. I
got burned by needing to go back two steps and didn't have a way. Now I do.
> Dang, am I a ray of sunshine or what? ;-}
Eh, reality(?) is good.
-- -eben QebWenE01R@vTerYizUonI.nOetP http://royalty.mine.nu:81 "It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an exercise for your kill-file." -- Bertil Jonell ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 18:03:00 EDT