HOWTO: Upgrade to Debian Unstable

[Jansi]

This was a fantastic way for me to transition to a full debian install. Thanks so much!

update:
I used this approach 4 times; on the 4th, a week after the other three, apt-get dist-upgrade downloaded everything, but then failed because of perl problems, spitting out stuff like along the lines of
debconf: Perl may be unconfigured [...]

Googling stuff suggested that perl was essential to the apt-get process, but that it also got hosed during the apt-get process, probably because stuff at Debian.org had changed some dependencies...

I am not sure what exactly fixed it (an hour of messing around, basically), but in the end I know it had to do with my manually installing perl from the
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/
site -- at least enough to really break it by running dkpg -i on anything that had "perl" it (!), then running dkpg -f install to finally wake up and fix it! (initially, dkpg -f install would fail like everything else).

I know that's not a lot of detail, but if someone else gets in that position, it will be better than anything I found on the net. Moral of the story seems to be that you can get in to a catch-22 situation when updating perl, and that by manually installing at deb or two, you can get dkpg -f install working enough again to actually fix it for you.

[spottyrover]

could some one give me some kind of idea of how much net time and what speed they are on.
so that I could decide if this is possible for me to do

thanks

[Jansi]

could some one give me some kind of idea of how much net time and what speed they are on.
so that I could decide if this is possible for me to do

thanks

I have DSL -- at around 170kps, downloading took about an hour, I guess. I can't imagine doing it with a dial-up connection.

[spottyrover]

Hi i've tried to follow your upgrade to unstable but I do not seem to be getting anywhere
I hope someone can help

I am using a clean install of knoppix 3.6
installed to hard drive by sudo knoppix-installer


I cahanged the source list to

# /etc/apt/sources.list for Knoppix
# If you want to do a "full upgrade", you should first
# upgrade the Packages from Debian/unstable (KDE & Co.)
# before doing a (dist-)upgrade for Debian/testing.
#
# See sources.list(5) for more information, especialy
# Remember that you can only use http, ftp or file URIs
# CDROMs are managed through the apt-cdrom tool.

# Security updates for "stable"
deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org testing/updates main contrib non-free

## Stable
#deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian stable main contrib non-free
#deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free

# Stable Sources
#deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian stable main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free

# Testing
#deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian testing main contrib non-free
#deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free

# Testing Sources
#deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian testing main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free

# Unstable
#deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
#deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/non-US main contrib non-free

# Unstable Sources
#deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/non-US main contrib non-free

# Experimental
#deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian ../project/experimental main contrib non-free

# Experimental Sources
#deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian ../project/experimental main contrib non-free

# Java
#deb ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/java/linux/debian woody main non-free
#deb-src ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/java/linux/debian woody main non-free
#deb ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/java/linux/debian unstable main non-free
#deb-src ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/java/linux/debian unstable main non-free

## More wireless stuff
# deb http://debian.isg.ee.ethz.ch/public woody madwifi
# deb-src http://debian.isg.ee.ethz.ch/public woody madwifi
# deb http://debian.isg.ee.ethz.ch/public woody airo-mpi
# deb-src http://debian.isg.ee.ethz.ch/public woody airo-mpi
# deb ftp://ftp.tcweb.org/pub/debian unstable main
# deb-src ftp://ftp.tcweb.org/pub/debian unstable main

## NX stuff
# deb http://www.kalyxo.org/debian/ experimental main

# ndiswrapper
# deb http://rigtorp.se/debian unstable/
# deb-src http://rigtorp.se/debian unstable/

## Blades Repository (pppoeconf & co)
# deb http://people.debian.org/~blade/testing ./
# deb-src http://people.debian.org/~blade/testing ./

## deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 r3 _Potato_ - Official i386 Binary-1 (20010427)]/ unstable contrib main non-US/contrib non-US/main

## Knoppix special packages resource at LinuxTag HQ
# deb http://developer.linuxtag.net/knoppix ./
# deb-src http://developer.linuxtag.net/knoppix ./

# deb http://snapshot.debian.net/archive pool gcc
# deb-src http://snapshot.debian.net/archive pool gcc


#steve

#Official-Stable
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/ stable/non-US main contrib non-free

#Official-testing
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/ testing/non-US main contrib non-free

#Official-UnStable
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/ unstable/non-US main contrib non-free


and the apt.conf to:

APT:efault-Release "unstable";
APT::Cache-Limit 10000000;
Apt::Get::Purge;



then I did a apt-get update

with the result of

root@box:~# apt-get update
Err http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Packages
Could not connect to security.debian.org:80 (1.0.0.0), connection timed out
etc

could some one tell me what I am dooing wrong
by the way I can surf the net ok with adsl via a lan so I assume that my connection is ok



thanks

[empro]

sorry.... i am a newbie.... how do i change the line APT:efault-Release "testing"; to APT:efault-Release "unstable";. ..... my internet connection is pretty fucked up and i cannot get it detected before logging in to kde and configuring it myself...... so i cant log in console and do like what the instructions said....... so i edited sources.list while in kde.... but im still finding out how to change that line.... anyone can help me ?