[ale] Installing current Debian Sid

[James Sumners]

I'm pretty sure you encountered problems because testing ("squeeze")
is currently frozen. When testing gets frozen, sid feels some side
effects. While testing is frozen it gets the primary focus and sid
gets to have broken packages for longer than normal.

Back when I ran Debian on a desktop (admittedly several years ago now)
I had no problems installing stable and then dist-upgrading to sid.
But I learned real fast not to try and even do an `apt-get update &&
apt-get upgrade` when testing was in freeze mode.

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 4:22 PM, Damon L. Chesser <damon at damtek.com> wrote:
> Someone, new to linux it seems posted an email about Debian and trying
> to upgrade to Sid.  They said it broke the install.  I just installed
> Debian stable onto my laptop, then dist-upgraded to Sid.  It did break
> the install.  Udev needed to be updated, the kernel needed to be updated
> and the following mess had many broken packages that would only be fixed
> by using the manual (and dreaded) dpkg -i  --forced-$FOO options (See
> dpkg --forced-help).  I thought it was to much a PITA so I re-installed.
>
> This time, I only installed a base install of Stable.  Changed sources
> to point to Testing, upgraded, dist-upgraded (using apt-get, not
> aptitude upgrade).  Changed sources to Sid, upgraded, then
> dist-upgraded.  When I was done, I ran tasksel, checked "desktop" and
> made sure "standard" and "laptop" were also checked.  tasksel dutifully
> installed gnome-desktop-environment for me.  Painless.
>
> The moral of the story?  The move from current stable to unstable has
> big, big changes so only install a minimum system if you want to make
> that move.  Once you are up and running in Sid, make SURE you install
> apt-listbugs as well.
>
> After a year long love affair with first Ubuntu, then Fedora 13 (Ubuntu
> 10,04 is way to buggy for my use on my hardware) I am back to Debian.  I
> forgot how pretty it was and how fast it works on a similarly configured
> desktop.
>
> HTH
>
>
> --
> Damon
> damon at damtek.com
>
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-- 
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
CH:D 59