[plug] busted upgrade

[Sham Chukoury]

I've heard of broken Debian systems, after a switch from Stable to
something else... but I've never experienced it myself. :P My switch
from Stable to Unstable was rather uneventful (esp. compared to me
switching from kernel 2.4.23 to 2.6.0).

What I'd like to know is.. How did you do your upgrade?
- edited /etc/apt/sources.list to use the testing package list?
- ran apt-get update ?
- ran apt-get dist-upgrade ?

> To say it in a few words,
> When I remove the GUI packages (just to try to start from a base of 
> sorts)  
> and try installing through tasksel a desktop environment,
> I get a rather significant list of packages that are 'not going to be 
> installed'.  WHY !!??

What 'GUI' packages are you removing, and why?

> I have changed the perl ? command in apt.conf to say default dist to 
> be 'testing'

Hmm, I don't remember ever doing something like this when upgrading to
unstable.

I suggest you try 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade'. dist-upgrade
is recommended when switching between debian versions, since it's a bit
more powerful than just upgrade. (check man apt-get for info) From
there, if some packages still won't install, find out if some related
version of those packages are currently installed. If they are, remove
them manually (apt-get remove), then try installing/upgrading again.

If all else fails, fire up "lynx www.google.com.au". ;)

Good luck.
§:)