HOWTO: Upgrade to Debian Unstable

**eadz** · 06-05-2003, 02:26 AM

Originally Posted by Tortoise

Sorry, it's unclear to me why you would want to do this - why not simply install Debian?

It is installing debian. Just not via the debian installer.

**Tortoise** · 06-05-2003, 04:35 AM

Well, that clears it up then.
Is there any advantage in this way?

**eadz** · 06-05-2003, 04:43 AM

Originally Posted by Tortoise

Well, that clears it up then.
Is there any advantage in this way?

Well if you've installed via knoppix, and installed via the debian installer, you'd see that it's a lot easier with the knoppix installer as it detects your hardware for you, and pre-installs all the software.

**Tortoise** · 06-05-2003, 04:47 AM

Why hasn't whatever magic is in the Knoppix installer migrated to other distros, especially the supposedly noob friendly ones?

**Stephen** · 06-05-2003, 05:40 AM

Originally Posted by Tortoise

Why hasn't whatever magic is in the Knoppix installer migrated to other distros, especially the supposedly noob friendly ones?

That's something you would have to ask them it is all released under the GPL so there is no problem with them using it and I would image like anything else there's already people looking at it to get ideas.

**Tortoise** · 06-05-2003, 05:50 AM

It was funny today at work, someone mentioned that they had used Linux at college, and had wanted to re-learn it, but was worried about how complex it would be to set up.
I got my Knoppix disc, put it in a spare computer, and it booted first time with full support for everything... I have never seen Win do that on the pieced together machines we use!

**Hydralisk** · 06-06-2003, 09:44 PM

That's basically the whole idea of this howto; you get an autoconfiguring installer for Debian unstable.

**beforewisdom** · 06-08-2003, 04:55 AM

Why would I want to do this ?

What will doing all of this give me that knoppix installed to my hard drive ( and using apt-get -t unstable install, with a modified sources.list ) will not give me?

Steve

**retroflash** · 01-04-2004, 07:15 AM

Originally Posted by Tortoise

Why hasn't whatever magic is in the Knoppix installer migrated to other distros, especially the supposedly noob friendly ones?

Gentoo has a similar detection built into it. It is vert helpfull indeed, Problem with gentoo is that it has no binary packages which means you have to compile EVERYTHING.
Knoppix is the way to go. Plop in the cd, boot, shell and run knx-hdinstall and your golden in about 15 mins. Gentoo on the other hand, you plop in the cd (with a 45 page install manual in hand), and spend the next 3 days compiling a complete system with everything you need. And believe me, with compile times as they are you don't have ANYTHING that you dont need.

Cheers...and thanx to the knoppix team for an outstanding distro.

**Mistshadow** · 01-07-2004, 09:18 AM

Dumb question; how do you change the word "testing" to "unstable" without it just beeping at you? For that matter, how do exit it while saving you changes, since pressing escpae only caused it to beep? I've never used that before.

Um, another dumb question: what difference does it make to do it this way, if you just edit your apt sources and tell it to upgrade (apt-get dist-upgrade)?