[plug] Question about upgrading from Debian 4.0 to 5.0

[Daniel Pittman]

Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> writes:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:25:21 +1000
>> From: Daniel Pittman <daniel at rimspace.net>
>> Reply-To: plug at plug.org.au
>> To: plug at plug.org.au
>> Subject: Re: [plug] Question about upgrading from Debian 4.0 to 5.0
>> 
>> Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> writes:
>>
>>> I am thinking about upgrading my Debian installation, from 4.0 to Debian
>>> 5.0, on this system. On my laptop, I had done a clean installation of Debian
>>> 5.0.
>>>
>>> To do the upgrade, I am looking at doing it by just changing the URL's in
>>> the sources.list file, from etch to lenny, and then doing an apt-get update
>>> followed by apt-get dist-upgrade.
>>
>> Don't do that.
>>
>>> Has anyone else done it this way, and, has it caused (or, is it likely to
>>> cause) any problems?
>>
>> Yes.  You might get lucky, but it *HAS* caused some problems for some people.
>>
>> What you should do, instead, is read the Debian release notes.
>>
>> They include detailed instructions on how to perform the upgrade that work
>> around any issues found to date, as well as ensuring that you are aware of
>> anything specific you should check on the way.
>
> It looks like it is simply too complicated, to do the upgrade.

Um, honesty, it isn't.  Really.  For true.  (Sorry if I scared you.)

Debian is very, very good at upgrading between versions.  I have machines that
have been upgraded for literally a decade with Debian, and it isn't that
terrible.

The release notes usually make it, like, a three step process or so, in which
you resolve any critical issues that are very common[1], then any key first
round upgrades, then just upgrade overall.

It isn't terribly hard, and just "dist-upgrade" might work, but it is better
to check and see what other people had go wrong first.

Regards,
        Daniel

No, seriously, don't give up on the idea.  I made it sound *WAY* too scary if
you have.  I am very, very sorry about doing that.

Footnotes: 
[1]  The size of the *fixed* mmap cache for package files in Etch was not
     sufficient to accommodate some upgrades, so they recommend bumping that
     early, IIRC.

-- 
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