apt-get sources configuration/minimal

[TheBman]

knoppix 3.3 hard drive install utilized knoppix-installer, debian version.

Running apt-get update has about 95 sources it checks, what can I "safely" remove from apt-get/sources to get a minimal source list, and not break my system? When I run it, i seem to get a mixtuer of stable/unstable/testing...is this required? or can I go with just unstable...etc.etc.etc.

Thanks
TheBman

[RockMumbles]

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and comment out (put a # (hash)) in front of the lines in your /etc/apt/sources.list file that reference stable and testing debian repositories.

ex:
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

in the above line after the URI is the word stable so you could comment out this line like this:

#deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

I also comment out all references to source repositories, as I don't build my own packages, ex:

#deb-src ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian woody main contrib non-free

then save the file and run apt-get update and then apt-get dist-upgrade to upgrade all libraries etc. to unstable, note you may have some difficulties doing this because of dependencies and duplications of some files in more than one package in KDE, as an example, if you get an error that some file is also in another package you will have to use:
dpkg --force-overwrite -i * fullpath-to-packagename-with-version.deb
to install the package that failed, then run apt-get dist-upgrade again. You may have to run apt-get dist-upgrade several times for all problems to be sorted out. Keep running apt-get dist-upgrade untill it says that there are no packages to upgrade, from then on you shouldn't need to use dist-upgrade for "normal" upgrades, just use apt-get upgrade to upgrade packages as they come into unstable,.

You should be able to get around any problems with this approach, but there is a chance that you may break your system doing this.

~rock

[TheBman]

Rock
Thanks...worked like a champ

TheBman

[Cuddles]

Hey RockMumbles,

While on the topic/subject, pardon my intrussion on this thread, but, since we are talking about the apt-get stuff...

Ever since installing Knoppix v3.3, I have been "seriously" doing the apt-get stuff, I just got through cleaning out my sources list, so most (if not all) of the 404 and not found messages are cleaned up, but...

All I have ever done is the apt-get update and apt-get upgrade, why/when would you do the apt-get dist one? What does it do, considering I am just a single user system, with a couple of user accounts for family members, is the dist part necessary?

Please, enlighten me, being new to this whole process, (which is incredibly cool, compared to Windows' way of doing this kind of stuff) , no one really ever did explain why, and when, and where, these kinds of things are done. Please, don't get me hosed here, ok? I love Knoppix/Debian, and have come to call it "my" OS now, and wouldn't want to have to go back to Windows, even if I had to :D

Thanks for any assistance on my furthering knowledge,
Cuddles

[Stephen]

Hey RockMumbles,

While on the topic/subject, pardon my intrussion on this thread, but, since we are talking about the apt-get stuff...

Ever since installing Knoppix v3.3, I have been "seriously" doing the apt-get stuff, I just got through cleaning out my sources list, so most (if not all) of the 404 and not found messages are cleaned up, but...

All I have ever done is the apt-get update and apt-get upgrade, why/when would you do the apt-get dist one? What does it do, considering I am just a single user system, with a couple of user accounts for family members, is the dist part necessary?

Please, enlighten me, being new to this whole process, (which is incredibly cool, compared to Windows' way of doing this kind of stuff) , no one really ever did explain why, and when, and where, these kinds of things are done. Please, don't get me hosed here, ok? I love Knoppix/Debian, and have come to call it "my" OS now, and wouldn't want to have to go back to Windows, even if I had to :D

Thanks for any assistance on my furthering knowledge,
Cuddles

You usually use the dist-upgrade when you want to change from one branch to the other, say you are running stable and you want to upgrade to testing then you put the sources for testing in the sources.list then you use the dist-upgrade to upgrade your entire install to testing.

[RockMumbles]

Thanks...worked like a champ
Cool

and..

Thanks, Stephen for all you do here!

~rock

[nmcphillips]

While we are on the subject, what does "apt-get setup" do?