HOWTO: Upgrade to Debian Unstable

**Hydralisk** · 05-03-2003, 05:06 PM

This is a tutorial on how to upgrade your just-installed KNOPPIX to debian unstable. I personally belive that using the sid repositories is better than using unofficial repositories so you can get the latest software.

The first step is to install knoppix. Boot from the CD, change things to your liking, and run the hdinstall script. Restart your computer.

Now that you've restarted, you should see the KDM login manager come on screen. Select the "console login" option. You will no be in a console with a login prompt. It should say something like this: "yourhostname login:" Log in as root. You will now have a root (#) prompt.

Type "vim /etc/apt/apt.conf" to edit your apt configuration file. Change the line APT:

efault-Release "testing"; to APT:

efault-Release "unstable";.

Now edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file so it looks something like this:

Code:

#/etc/apt/sources.list

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

# 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

Good, now that that is set up, quit vim and get ready to do some apt-ing. Enter the following commands:

Code:

# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

The dist-upgrade command will probably prompt your to remove many large packages. When I did it, the dist-upgrade command told me it had to remove all of KDE, for instance. Don't worry, you can install it later.

When you are upgrading, you will probably encounter an error in which one package cannot overwrite another packages files. your apt-get process will end with an error like "error processing package: /var/cache/apt/archives/blahblah-2.3.deb". You can fix that like this.

Code:

# dpkg --force overwrite -i /var/cache/apt/archives/blahblah-2.3.deb
# apt-get install -f
# apt-get dist-upgrade

Eventually, the long process will end. You will probably want to reinstall KDE, GNOME, CUPS, etc. (if they weren't already removed) with their GCC-3.3 (or whatever unstable is currently at; it's GCC-3.3 at the time of this writing):

Code:

#apt-get remove kdelibs
#apt-get install kde
#apt-get install gnome
#apt-get install mozilla mozilla-xft

The KDE and GNOME metapackages for unstable are (at the time of this writing), version 3.1.1 and 2.2.1, respectively. When you have reinstalled all the necessary packages, restart your computer enjoy your new Debian-SID computer. It should now function identically to any other regularly installed SID system.

**stonent** · 05-03-2003, 10:57 PM

Looks interesting

**Hydralisk** · 05-04-2003, 03:50 AM

BTW, I tried out this tutorial and it should work with both 3.1 and 3.2.

**ScouseMouse** · 05-06-2003, 06:08 PM

Does this remove all the Knoppix related stuff in the process?

For example "dpkg -l | grep -i knoppix" currently gives me a list of about 20 packages that seem to be knoppix custom packages. I'm not in the mood to find out whether removing them is going ot break anything cos I haven't got the time to fix it at the minute!

Thanks!

**Hydralisk** · 05-07-2003, 10:16 PM

If you want, you can remove the knoppix-* packages with dpkg --remove packagename or apt-get remove packagename, whichever suits you. The knoppix packages don't hurt anything being there unless dpkg asks you to remove them during a dist-upgrade.

**god** · 05-10-2003, 03:29 AM

would this work to get woody if you replaced the line with "stable" where apropriate?

**Hydralisk** · 05-17-2003, 06:00 PM

It would work to some extent, but you would not have all of the versions of woody packages because some packages on woody are actually lower versions than the packages that come with Knoppix.

**Rono64** · 05-31-2003, 08:27 PM

This may be a dumb question, but hey i am a relative newbie, so it's expected of me. If I have the debian cd roms can I use them to install some missing programs I need?

**Stephen** · 05-31-2003, 09:24 PM

Originally Posted by Rono64

This may be a dumb question, but hey i am a relative newbie, so it's expected of me. If I have the debian cd roms can I use them to install some missing programs I need?

You can use them but you will need to use apt-cdrom to add them to your sources list you can not enter them manually. Look at man apt-cdrom for more information.