[aclug-L] Upgrading to Debian 2.0 (hamm) beta

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

There have been a lot of questions about this lately so I figured I'd
type something up.  I probably ought to put this on the ACLUG website
someplace but I'm too lazy to write HTML code at the moment :-)

OK, first: What is Debian 2.0?  In a nutshell, it is the latest
version of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system.  This is the OS that 
we installed during our Free Linux Install events this spring and the
one that is used on the computers at WSU's Computer Science
department.  Version 2.0 is a substantial upgrade -- there are about
800 new packages, bringing the total to almost 2000.  The distribution 
has grown to three CDs (two binary and one source).  It also uses GNU
libc2 (aka Linux libc6), the same C library used in RedHat 5.1.
Debian 2.0 has a lot of new software and is a very exciting platform
to use.

Last night at 8:17 PM, Debian 2.0 officially was released as a beta.
This means that the final release in imminent, so I thought this would 
be a good time to describe how to upgrade or install Debian 2.0.  Some 
of these tips are lifted from Johnie Ingram's website at
http://www.netgod.net (but may be modified heavily).  If you have
questions, feel free to write to the ACLUG discussion list at
aclug-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx.  If you use IRC, you can hop on over to the
irc.us.debian.org server and join channel #debian.  (My nick on there
is CosmicRay, BTW).

These instructions assume that you are upgrading over the Internet.
If you are doing a fresh install, you can follow the install.txt
information in the disks-i386 directory.

Automatic Upgrade from Debian 1.3.x
-----------------------------------
1. Make sure that your 1.3.x installation has the latest libc5 and
   libg++27 packages installed.  You need libc5 5.4.0 and
   libg++27 2.7.2.1 or greater.  If you don't have those, you can find
   them at 
   ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/bo/binary-i386/base/libc5_5.4.33-6.deb and
   ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/bo/binary-i386/libs/libg++27_2.7.2.1-8.deb,
   respectively.

2. Download APT for bo, availble at:
   http://www.netgod.net/apt_0.0.16-0.1bo_i386.deb

3. Install the packages you fetched:

   dpkg -i libc5_5.4.33-6.deb        # (if needed)
   dpkg -i libg++27_2.7.2.1-8.deb    # (if needed)
   dpkg -i apt_0.0.16-0.1bo_i386.deb # (required)

4. Set up APT's /etc/apt/sources.list file.  You can also use the
   following sample:

####### cut here #### place in /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ftp1.us.debian.org/debian project/experimental/
deb http://ftp1.us.debian.org/debian frozen main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp1.us.debian.org/debian slink main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-i386/
# This is for the CDROM
#/cdrom/debian  frozen main contrib non-free
####### cut here #### place the above in /etc/apt/sources.list

5. Run:

   apt-get update

   It may complain that your system is "broken".  You can use
   dpkg --purge on the offending packages, but it's usually not
   anything to worry about.

6. Run:

   apt-get -f dist-upgrade

   This will download and install dozens of megabytes of new software.
   It performs the actual upgrade to 2.0 -- this single command!

7. Run:

   dpkg --pending --configure

   to make sure everything is configured.

Now your system is upgraded!  You can still use your familiar dselect
interface; to do so, select 0 [A]ccess and pick apt.  Let it keep your 
existing sources file.  Run an Update in dselect, and then you can use 
Select and Install as before.

The total time to upgrade, excluding time to download files from the
'net, will probably be about 20 to 30 minutes.

This may seem like a lot of work, but really it isn't.  You're
installing apt, which is a new package downloader interface used in
2.0.  It's a lot faster than the old method and works better.  Most
other OSs require a complete reinstall for this sort of upgrade, so be 
glad you're running Linux! :-)

John

-- 
John Goerzen   Linux, Unix consulting & programming   jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx |
Developer, Debian GNU/Linux (Free powerful OS upgrade)       www.debian.org |
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