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Debian

Debian Freezing 134

Posted by CmdrTaco from the break-out-the-woolen-mittens dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to alert us to that fact that Debian is scheduled to Freeze this weekend. Soon there shall be spuds for everyone. This of course means that I will continue to recklessly apt-get upgrade on my laptop with reckless disregard for the safety of anyone within a 20 yard radius of my sofa.
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Debian Freezing More

Debian Freezing

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  • Re:Suggestions (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Regarding the "system profiles", I hadn't thought of this, but couldn't you create your own custom profile? None of those profiles were quite right for me so I did it manually. If I had to do 13 machines, though, I would probably try to create a profile (or make do with one that existed). It seems better than scrolling through 2,256 packages in dselect 13 times. If not check out the profiles here (section 4.2): http://www.DEBIAN.ORG/releases/slink/i386/ch-parti tioning.en.html

  • Re:Use of Debian (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One nice hint:

    1. Set up your first box just the way you like it.

    2. Run "dpkg --get-selections" on it and capture the results to a file.

    3. On your other boxes, after installing the base system, run "dpkg --set-selections" on the file.

    Now "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" will pull all the same packages as the first box.
  • Liquid He is far too expensive, I can get liquid Nitrogen for about 50p a pint, which should be plenty.

  • Frozen Potatos (Score:3)

    by Yarn ( 75 ) on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:15AM (#1566305) Homepage
    I have to try this:

    1. Get a (real) potato
    2. Put it in liquid Nitrogen for about an hour
    3. Drop it.

    I expect it'll be pretty shatter resistant, just like the debian potato. I shall report here :)
  • Maybe he meant to use the scotch to help start a fire with the blanket. A workable short term solution....
  • When you upgrade, the packages are downloaded into /var/apt/cache (or something like that). Thus an interrupted download is no problem. You'll just start with the package you were on when the connection was broken. I do this all the time to modem upgrade over a couple of days.

    The downside is that apt doesn't actually install anything until the download is complete. IMHO this is broken, because it can require enormous amounts of disk space. apt should be smart enough to get all the dependencies for a package and then install it immediately.

    The upside is that apt is smart enough to figure out the dependencies, download and install everything for you. Automatically. Couldn't be more painless.

    --

  • Oh sure, no question. I was assuming a monolithic upgrade with dist-upgrade. I'm just saying that maybe dist-upgrade should be smarter than it is. Perhaps there is some technical issue I don't know about.

    --

  • I highly recommend it, and am definately going to try out potato once it's stable (probably on my Alpha as well... it's running RedHat 5.1 right now and is in dire need of an upgrade)

    Note that "unstable" really isn't all that unstable, working-wise. Debian has been the most stable, reliable distribution I've ever used. "unstable" is called that mostly because the packages change daily -- or hourly. They haven't been fully tested with the rest of the system, but they work 99% of the time anyway. "stable" tends to get out of date, so I've kept my system in line with "unstable" and have had zero problems.

    In my experience, potato has been far more stable than any other distro I've run (haven't tried the latest Red Hats or Mandrake yet, though).

    The only drawback with Debian for me was having to sit through the install and answer questions for many packages. That is being worked on however. I don't know what the status for potato is. Can one of the developers comment?

    --

  • I managed to get LinuxPPC 1999 into fairly workable shape, but would like to be running Debian, the PPC version. Does anybody have any feedback on whether that architecture is in vaguely workable condition? I'd be running it on a 9500 powermac with a G3 card in it, in limited drive space. Is it something anybody is actually using, or is it still mostly hypothetical? If it matters, I would need X and ADB support (preferably ability to map missing mousebuttons to Fkeys) but will not be wanting a Linux desktop environment such as Gnome. (Tried that w. LinuxPPC1999 and didn't like it.)
    Any Mac potatoes out there running Debian? :)
  • Because they didn't anticipate that some other entity would want to use their packaging system when they chose the name?

  • That's apt-get *dist-upgrade*... (Score:4)

    by Paul Crowley ( 837 ) on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:02AM (#1566312) Homepage Journal
    for those running Slink who don't want to destroy their system.

    Hope this helps (and don't let those spud gun pellets moulder down the side of the sofa)...
    --
  • Also note that alcohol freezes at a lower temperature than water, so if you leave it exposed to the elements you may drink a liquid that is below freezing. Talk about your brain freeze...
  • The freeze isn't officially announced.

    Yes it is.

    It probably won't happen, because one of the people who think it's too early is our Project Leader, Wichert Akkerman.

    The opinion of the Project Leader is irrelevant (well, it's as relevant as the opinion of any individual developer). He can't overturn a decision made by one of his delegates (see the Constitution [debian.org], point 8.2).

    Yes, I am leaking information here.

    Well, next time please be sure to leak correct information :-)

  • ...not yet running Debian, but wanting to, is there an FTP site(s) which will more than likely have an .ISO available? Thanks in advance.

    Debian creates CD-ROM images for stable releases only. You can find more information in the Debian CD image site [debian.org]. If you want to participate in testing new releases (including new CD images), please join the debian-testing list (see the subscription information [debian.org]).

  • It seems to me that most of the packages could be checked in to unstable, screened for bugs & stuff, then promoted to stable. Only the main infrastructure stuff, like installation and admin packages would really have to follow a more conventional release process.

    Several schemes similar to this have been proposed. The most important reason Debian has not switched is that it would require huge changes in project infrastructure (including an enormous one-time hit on the mirrors, I believe) and there simply isn't the energy (enthusiastic manpower, that is) to revamp the system that thoroughly.

    I suggest you check out past discussion on the Debian lists, through the public archives [debian.org].

  • You'd probably like it even better if you did a pure debian install, instead of mixing and matching. I think dpkg is WAY nicer than rpm. Also, I recommend NOT using dselect (just skip the dselect step), dist-upgrade to potato, install console-apt and install your packages that way. dselect gave me nothing but problems the one time I tried to use it (I had to go back and reinstall - it decided to start removing EVERYTHING after I told it to install some packages!).
  • It's getting cold up in New York, too! ;>

    Cool, bring it on Debian!

  • I haven't done it with apt, but I used to do it on 486 installs with dselect.

    Simply go to the directory where it stores the downloads, and type

    dpkg -iGER *

    which causes it to install anything it can, recursively through the directory structure, but skipping packages already installed. Dpkg won't install anything whose dependencies are not met.


    I did it not for download speed, but because some of the packages took so long to install on a 486/33.

    You could then try this same command in directories, and delete everthing if it came back saying they were all already installed.

  • A quick look at Google [google.com] with keywords convert red hat debian turns up the canonical document MINI-HOWTO to convert from Red Hat 5+ to Debian 2.0. [geocities.com]

    I took a look at this last week with intent to turn a "partly RHAT 5.0, 5.1, and other stuff" box into a Debian system.

    Unfortunately, the process is fairly dependent on some particular packages (notably libg++ ) and it looks like it is a distinctly nontrivial process to make this work in practice.

    The second problem that you'll hit is that you'll wind up with a whole lot of "cruft," library-like stuff hiding here and there larding up your filesystem.

    My inclination would be, instead, to:

    • Do a backup of /etc
    • Make sure that /home and /usr/local are on suitable partitions such that they will survive the transition unscathed.
    • Nuke out /usr , /var , and / by doing an installation from scratch of Debian. Do not format or automagically mount /home or /usr/local ; that can wait 'til after the system is semi-working.
    • I took a look at the portions of networking config that I wanted to keep working from old OS to new OS; I set up cfengine [hioslo.no] rules that I tested on the old RHAT install before installing fresh to manage this.

    At this point, the box happens to be running RHAT 6.1; there is a good likelihood that I'll set up some even "smarter" cfengine rules than I have now and run the box through a few distributions just for the sake of regaining familiarity before letting it settle down with Debian.

  • Automated Debian Management (Score:4)

    by Christopher B. Brown ( 1267 ) <cbbrowne@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:42AM (#1566321) Homepage

    There's not a precise equivalent to Kickstart; what I would do, if I wanted 13 identical boxes, would be:

    • Pick one box as a "master," and install everything that you want installed on it.

      I would mount my Debian CD on a separate box and download via HTTP; this has the result of pushing all the packages that got installed into /var/cache/apt/archives

    • Then, add /var/cache/apt/archives to /etc/exports so that it gets exported to other machines that want it.
    • Install the "base" Debian stuff (about 6 floppies worth of stuff) on those other machines.
    • Copy over some base networking files ( e.g. - /etc/hosts , /etc/fstab and such) and drop them into place so that each machine has some basic common configuration.

      I would tend to want to use cfengine [hioslo.no] for this; I have yet to get it configured to distribute files itself, which is something it claims to be able to do...

      Inserting extra needed lines in config files like /etc/fstab is the sort of thing that cfengine is ideal for...

    • Mount the relevant filesystems on the remote machines, and then have them install via: # dpkg -i /mnt/common-apt-cache/*.deb

      This gets all the machines to have the "common" stuff.

    • It would make a lot of sense to either build a .deb package containing any common config scripts/files or provide a common NFS-mounted "export" directory like the "apt package archive" as a conduit to push stuff to the remote boxes.
    • Set up a cron job on each box that (let's say) runs a script in /mnt/common-config/ that installs any .deb files in /mnt/common-apt-cache/ that are less than a day old (or check against what's installed).

      I would most definitely try to implement this using cfengine as it's designed to do this sort of thing...

    This is definitely no harder to automate on Debian than it is on RPM-based distributions, and could actually be easier as you could set up a local "package archive" for the whole set of packages and use apt-get hitting a local server rather than a remote one to keep all of the packages up-to-date with what you want on them.

    Look at cfengine; the Usenix journal ;login has had a series on it recently; it is really powerful.

  • I'd quibble with "Essentially all" part, myself. There are many distributions (MCC and Stampede, for example) which use their own package managers. Still others keep to the traditional TGZ/tar.gz format.

    What's in a name? RPM is a common acronym, re-used many times. (Revs Per Minute being perhaps the best-known.) On the other hand, I do agree that a package manager should be distinct from a distribution. The code =IS= open-source, so the distribution cannot claim ownership.

  • True, but Helium'll climb up the sides of the glass. Boring old Liquid N won't do that. :) Mind you, it's nice stuff to play with!

  • Re:Frozen Potatos (Score:3)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak&yahoo,com> on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:31AM (#1566324) Homepage Journal
    Liquid helium's better. :) And stranger!!! :)

    Personally, I suggest dropping into a large vat of boiling oil. The shattered fragments will make nice mini-french fries.

  • other distributions having to rely on Redhat or Debian for their package management systems.

    This really isn't the case; there's no "reliance" going on here. Think of the extension as "the package management system developed by the Debian group". Other people are free to use the format and tools, not to mention modifying the tools (standard free/open source spiel...)

  • "Freeze" means different things to different people, but the general idea is to "solidify" the distribution--i.e., we're almost done here, so don't add any more stuff and only change that which is essential, so we don't screw up.

    Basically it's the beginning of the home stretch towards final release.

  • Yes, that's how we have been doing freezes since the paleozoic. The problem now is that there is too much stuff in Incoming. Check it out if you wish, some sites mirror Incoming.

  • This is premature. (Score:4)

    by Lalo Martins ( 2050 ) on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @09:12AM (#1566328) Homepage
    The freeze isn't officially announced. It isn't officially decided. It probably won't happen, because one of the people who think it's too early is our Project Leader, Wichert Akkerman.

    Basically the point is that some (me included) don't want to freeze without working boot-floppies (the installation program suite, for those not too deep into Debian) and with a lot of new packages stuck in Incoming.

    (Yes, I am leaking information here. But my intention is to fix another lack, because a leak of correct information is IMHO better than a leak of misinformation.

  • Distribution Howto. (Score:3)

    by jelwell ( 2152 ) on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:24AM (#1566329)
    I just finished reading the distribution howto [linuxdoc.org] by Eric Raymond - mostly because I've been thinking about switching distributions. The one thing that made me really sad is Eric's comments about the Redhat Package Manager, "The big selling point of this distribution is RPM, the Red Hat Package Manager. This piece of software is a remarkable advance; it allows you to cleanly install and de-install applications and operating-system components, including the kernel and OS base itself. RPM is now used as well by essentially all other distributions except Debian."

    What bothered me was the name of the Redhat Package Manager. If Redhat wanted everyone to use it why not seperate itself from the product name. Anyways, I noticed that many other distributions do use rpms. It makes me equally sad that Debian, seemingly, has a more advanced package deployment, grouping system - but they had to go and make the extension .deb?! Why did these two great distributions make their package management systems so proprietary? Not in the sense of non-openness, but in the sense that other distributions having to rely on Redhat or Debian for their package management systems.

    Oh wo is me. When will the LSB do something?
    This is all probably flame-baiting, off-topic nonsense. Someone point me to slackware, are they still using tar.gz as their package managing system?
    Joseph Elwell.
  • Yep, us Slackers use .tgz files (.tar.gz bastardized to fit in 8.3 format). installpkg runs a small script that's included in the .tgz file to do any post-install configuration.
  • I find this great in that Debian has been active lately, more active than before. Debian now has backing and you can purchase boxed versions, and with this freeze, Debian will continue to be stronger and stronger. I was very suprised by the quantity of bugs squashed in just one day. Great work!

    --
    Scott Miga
  • ...not yet running Debian, but wanting to, is there an FTP site(s) which will more than likely have an .ISO available? Thanks in advance.

    ----------------

    "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
  • As a user of potato for a long time now, I've gotta say I think this is a great thing. I still have never seen an Operating System (or distro) as easy to administer, maintain, and upgrade, than a Debian box.

    On another note, I noticed after a recent update that there is currently around 4500 software packages in the Debian repository. I wonder, is Debian now the largest linux Distro? Perhaps Linux support for DVD is coming none-too-soon, we might need it for Debian. ;-)
  • 1.) Does Debian have any system install automation like Redhat's kickstart?

    This I can't answer for sure, because I haven't had occasion to try it, but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing about this capability for Debian.

    2.) How good is the Debian package management?

    To put it simply, Debian's package management is the best available anywhere. It will retrieve packages for you, handle dependancies, handle updates, and overall, just work amazingly. It basically does it all. ;-)

    For example, if I had a Red Hat 5.2 box, and I wanted to upgrade it to Red Hat 6.0, the most common upgrade path is to insert the 6.0 CD, reboot my computer, and tell it to upgrade the current install.

    To upgrade a Debian 2.1 system to Debian 2.2, I change a few lines in /etc/apt/sources.list to point to the potato directories, and I type 'apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade'. Then, I sit back and wait for it to tell me that it's finished. That's it. No rebooting, no hassle, just sweet and worry free. ;-)

    I would like to use it with the 13 boxes as well...Right now if I need to update something on the boxes I make an rpm, put it in a certain directory, and it installs itself that night. Would something like that be possible in debian?

    Yep, it's very possible, and very easy. You can either take the program you want to install and make a Debian package out of it (no more difficult than making an RPM, and many consider it much easier), or you can take a current Debian package for that program, get the source package, change it however you want to, build a new Debian binary (and/or source package), and 'dpkg -i ' to install it. Or, you can even set up your own custom Package listing on a local ftp/NFS server, and just 'apt-get install ' to have it download and install the program for you.

    To give you one last example of how well Debian's package management is, I know someone who set things up so that when he attempted to upgrade a single package, Debian's package utility had to go out, get all the dependancies, plus those things the dependancies depended on, etc, and install it all in the proper order. He ended up having 457 packages updated, all at once, all with that one command. And it went without a single hitch or problem anywhere.
  • Check out the following site for full info on ISO images:

    [debian.org]
    http://cdimage.debian.org/
  • ... and it's apt-get *upgrade* for those that already have potato. I'm sure that's what he was implying.
  • http://www.geocit ies.com/ResearchTriangle/3328/rh5todeb-howto.txt [geocities.com]

    Google is good! "convert debian redhat", "I'm feeling lucky", Bam.
  • OK, I'll put in a few harsh words :) (These are meant as constructive criticisms, I'm a Debian user but dpkg has some deficiencies)
    1) Speed - RPM is an order of magnitude faster at doing queries
    2) Why does dpkg not offer a way to view untruncated package names with -l ?
    3) Package names are goofy. In redhat it's easy to guess what a package name would be. apt-get kicks ass but would be even better if I could say "apt-get install svgalib" rather than having to know that the svgalib package name is really "svgalibg1"
    4) The fact that the install is based on apt-get makes it somewhat uncomfortable to install on a space-limitted machine, since the install insists on downloading all packages before it starts installing them. Use CD, right? Ergh, what if this is a laptop or something w/o a CD-Rom.
    Those are my big complaints. Overall Debian is excellent however. I probably wouldn't recommend it to a newbie, but if you're pretty comfortable with Linux/Unix you should try Debian out. (I used Slackware for 2 years or so, Redhat for about 3.5 and I switched to Debian about 6 months ago)
  • Why is it suprising that Red Hat and Debian chose to name their inventions after themselves? It's like asking why von Neumann machines are named after von Neumann, even though everybody uses the idea. People like credit for what they do, especially when they're not getting anything else for it.

    Red Hat is a commercial enterprise. They sell software. Being good, happy people, they put everything they write under the GPL. This means others can use it, which is the idea. But if everyone else is going to use Red Hat's software, what competitive advantage does Red Hat have? Their brand. Red Hat's business model is based on people associating Red Hat with quality. And that means they are going to want credit for their ideas. So it makes all the sense in the world, that Red Hat wants their name on RPM, even in other distros.

    And Debian? They're not in it for the money. Think about academia for a moment here. When you put in lots of work and come up with good ideas, you want something for it. If it's not money, it's respect and recongnition. So of course Debian wants credit for what they create.
  • I have my dial-on-demand gateway running Squid (and Junkbuster). One machine will perform the update, using HTTP as the apt-get method. I have an http_proxy environment variable pointing to Squid. After that machine finishes its update, I run it on the rest. Subsequent updates pull from the Squid cache, avoiding the modem.
  • tonight I shall run apt-get with abandon from all my Deb boxen

    Bad idea.

    a) The freeze isn't till this weekend

    b) A freeze doesn't mean it's gotten any better. Slink had a number of bugs that were both created and fixed in freeze.

    If you want Stable, wait till the release. Of course, I'm running potato now myself, and am not having any trouble...
  • Dselect IS your friend, specially when running unstable.

    I gotta agree here. apt-get is fine for installing single packages, or for doing updates off of security.debian.org, but for unstable, I want dselect. I like to have the list of new packages available...
  • Water, or anything else, can never be at exactly
    0 degrees Kelvin.

    What you are refering to is the triple point of
    water, were all three states coexist. (Just
    like at 32 F water can be either liquid or
    solid.) The triple point of water occurs at
    273.16 and when the pressure is equal to the
    vapor pressures of the solid and liquid state
    (don't remember what it is, but it's near
    vacuum.)

    Incidentally, the freezing point of water is
    273.15 K.
  • Ponder,

    What shall be the code name of the next debian unstable distribution? have we run out of all cool toy story names? (oh toy story 2 is on the horizon). How about cowboy, or maybe a little twist, gunslinger! ha! space dude sounds fun.. or maybe extraterristal. Debian ET sounds nice too.

    Any ideas as to what it should be called?

    Yes /broken is an entity
    --
  • Ha, I've been idle on there for about a few years. See how long \broken has been idle.
    --
  • With all of the attention Debian is getting lately, maybe it should be "Buzz."

    Incidentally, the first officially released version of Debian (1.1, don't ask), was called buzz.
    --

  • Only superfluid liquid helium climbs up! You have
    to use a vacuum pump to reduce the pressure and
    the boiling point below 2.2 K. A nice feature of
    superfluid helium is, that it doesn't "boil"
    anymore. Its heat conductivity is next to infinity and any helium vaporizes from the surface.
    BTW: Liquid helium is only very expensive if you are not able to recycle it.

    Frank Pobell: Matter and Methods at Low Temperatures (Springer) is a really nice book
    dealing with ordinary He and all the stuff for
    temperatures 1K

  • Freeze E-Mail (Score:5)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:29AM (#1566348)
    Here is an E-Mail from Richard Braakman regarding how the freeze will work.

    Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 23:36:59 +0100
    From: Richard Braakman
    To: debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org
    Subject: Status of Potato

    (Please send followups to debian-devel, not debian-devel-announce)


    Potato looks ready to freeze. Its primary goals have been achieved,
    and the only things left to do are to finish the bootdisks and fix
    lots of bugs. I think it is advisable to freeze now, before we
    start major new developments in potato.

    Last weekend has shown that the bug count can be reduced rapidly
    in intense sessions. We'll need more of those, and probably a large
    number of packages will also have to be removed from frozen.

    The freeze will be the coming weekend, on Sunday, November 7th.

    Before the freeze, we will have to deal with the backlog in Incoming
    somehow. There are more than 200 packages in it now and it's growing.
    Help is on the way, but probably not in time. In any case, I do not
    think it is wise to install a hundred new packages just before the
    freeze! My plan is to handle all the packages that fix bugs, and
    leave the rest for the new unstable.

    After the freeze, I expect it will take a week or two for frozen to
    settle down. A lot of bugs can be fixed in that time. This period
    will be similar to the traditional freeze.

    Then we can start with Test Cycles. These will address the problems
    we had with the previous two freezes. A Test Cycle looks like this:

    1. Boot disks and CD images are created.
    2. The distribution is tested for a fixed amount of time. No changes
    of any kind will be made to frozen during this time. Fixes for
    problems that are discovered will of course be prepared, but they
    will not be installed yet.
    3. The results are evaluated. If the distribution is good enough to
    release, it is released as it is.
    4. Otherwise, fixes are installed, and if necessary, extra time is
    taken to fix the problems.
    5. New boot disks and CD images are created, and the cycle begins again.

    Richard Braakman

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Well, a German was the first person to think of freezing potatoes.


  • OK, I'm one of those insane people who downloads each RedHat release over a modem.

    It's actually quite painless, I use wget -c and over the course of a few nights I can suck down the entire thing over my blazing fast 33.6K line.

    My question is this: Does the Debian package manager have support for partial and interrupted upgrades? It would be nice to upgrade my system a little bit at a time, because I'd be doing it over a modem. Is that possible? I'd also like to do it automatically. I don't want to have to have the package manager list out the dependencies so I would have to download and install the packages manually.



  • Oh, this is beautiful. Thanks for all the great information. I think that I will get debian going as my system of choice. I've ordered a CD for my first Debian install, but it's great to know that future upgrades can be done automatically, and fairly painlessly through a modem.
  • I have always wanted to try Debian but never broke down and did so. I have a couple of questions that I was hoping someone could answer...
    1.) Does Debian have any system install automation like Redhat's kickstart?
    If I were to start using Debian, I would start USING Debian. Which means I would have to install it on 13 machines, and I don't want to set down and pick packages for each.
    2.) How good is the Debian package management?
    I would like to use it with the 13 boxes as well... Right now if I need to update something on the boxes I make an rpm, put it in a certain directory, and it installs itself that night. Would something like that be possible in debian?

    Thanks ahead of time for anyone's input...

  • I believe they are working on making apt smart enough to download smaller chunks and install those chunks.

    I don't remember the details, but I'm sure you can find them in the Debian mailing list archives somewhere.

  • Overall it works, but there are a couple of problems to beware of:

    passwd / group file automagic rollover http://www.g eocities.com/ResearchTriangle/3328/conversion-tool s.tar.gz [geocities.com]
    I didn't end up using the script since I only had two users to worry about. I did look it over, but I don't know enough perl to make it sing. The /etc/{passwd,group}files in the tarball were very useful though. Heed this note from the mini-howto's author: Trouble! convert passwd and group first, before ever installing anything debian related using dpkg. Otherwise the ownerships will be almost irrecoverably incorrect.

    dselect|apt-get don't work completely
    -probably because my partition setup is unexpected, they always crash at the install phase ('unable to remount /usr' or something).
    That's okay, use apt-get or dselect to download the packages, then cd to /var/cache/apt/archives/
    and use 'dpkg --install *.deb'. Keep an eye on the console for the 20-30 packages you will have to reinstall because of broken dependencies (here's where it is useful to do this over a telnet session so you can log all the screen output).

    Here are my notes left over from doing my RH6.0 to Deb2.1 conversion:

    -----[snip]------
    >If you would, could you let me know how the conversion goes?

    Well, I think I'm done, but I'm not sure if I broke anything or not. I imagine there will be few toys on the floor to trip over. :)
    (btw, I completely ignored version numbers for everything)

    I did not take any safety precautions. The computer I'm playing with has no important information on it. I use solely for experimenting with and learning Linux. I fully expect it to blow it up non-recoverably at some point.


    Step (1)
    - no problem except for the passwd/group thing (not having a debian version available); I just skipped that and came back to it later

    (2) libstdc++ was already installed

    (4) took me awhile, but I eventually found a nondebbin version of dpkg at
    ftp://ftp. [mirror] .debian.org/debian/project/dpkg/

    (8) This is the order that worked for me, but I had to try it a bunch of times so it shouldn' be considered definitive:

    $ dpkg --force-depends --install libldso*
    $ dpkg --force-depends --install libncurses*
    $ dpkg --force-depends --install libstdc++
    $ dpkg --force-depends --install ldso

    $ dpkg --force-depends --install libc6
    ; core dumped after a segmentation fault at this point almost any command will segfault, even ls and rm. Don't worry All-Is-Not-Lost! (but I sure thought I was!!!)

    $ ldconfig
    ; *wait* for ldconfig to exit, it really is busy doing something

    $ dpkg --force-depends --install libc6
    $ dpkg --force-depends --install dpkg
    $ dpkg --configure dpkg

    * these files are new (not mentioned in the HowTo). The best way to make sure you get what you need is to go to
    http://debian.org/distrib/packages
    and search for the package you are looking for. It will also give the dependencies, download them too.

    (10) Skip this step for an http/ftp install

    (11.2) ---==---
    $ dselect
    - choost Apt for access method, see bottom description panel for firewall/proxy setup

    :: Proxy Setup (skip if you don't have one) ::
    - if you have to setup proxies, *exit* not suspend dselect otherwise your changes will have no effect.

    First try:

    $ http_proxy="http://your.firewall.here:port/"

    This is important for us MS weenies: don't use the command:

    $ set http_proxy=bklah blah blah

    because it's not the same as the previous one. I don't want to talk about how long it took me to figure this out.

    - rerun dselect and try and Update, if the main menu returns too quickly your proxy is probably not working. Exit again and try this:

    $ gunzip /usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf.gz
    $ cp /usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf /etc/apt/apt.conf

    and edit apt.conf for your particular firewall setup. Hopefully you know a bit about how proxies work. I only had to change one line:

    Proxy "http://firewall.gov.yk.ca:80/";

    and comment out the following one (the 2 '//'):

    // Proxy::http.us.debian.org "DIRECT";

    - run deselect again and [U]pdate. This is where it started working for me.

    (11.3)
    - dselect > Update downloaded about 40mb and then I ran into my next problem:

    "mount: can't find /usr in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab"

    I presume because the script is expecting /usr to be it's own partition, which it isn't on my machine. Anyhow, at this point dselect is effectively dead in the water.

    Look for /var/cache/apt/archives, it should have all of your downloaded .deb packages. Then run:

    $ cd /var/cache/apt/archives
    $ dpkg --install *

    and go get a coffee. But keep an eye on the machine because you'll have to answer a few prompts.

    On my box, 5 .deb's didn't install because of failed dependencies and 8 packages unpacked but didn't finish installing. From here it was a fairly simple matter of running

    $ dpkg --install some.pack.age.0.10.deb

    and figuring out from the error messages what it needs to be installed first (for the 5). And then running

    $ dpkg --configure

    for the 8 incomplete installs.

    that's all folks. ;-)
    =========================

    do you know where the dselect/dpkg logs are kept?
    A few messages scrolled by of things to do and programs to run at a later date, but I don't remember them all...

    Oh yeah, there's one more juicy tidbit: I never once layed a finger on my computer. I did all of this from remote using telnet/ssh and VNC.

    thanks for your help Brock,

    -matt
    -----[snip]------
  • As the others here have said, the "master" site for the ISO images is cdimage.debian.org [debian.org]. However, there's no need to burn a CD set just to install Debian; instead, get the "boot floppies" for the distribution (in disks-[ARCH]) and use those to get the base system up and running, then get the packages you need over the net using apt.

  • Asking for highly specific technical advice in the middle of a thread on slashdot is likely a waste of time. And technically it is somewhat off-topic.

    If you think the gdm package has a bug, go ahead and file a bug report [debian.org].

    If you think you may need some help, or don't fully understand why gdm is doing what it's doing, then you should probably try asking on the debian-user mailing list [debian.org].

    (I don't use gdm, so I can't answer any questions about it.)

    If dpkg can't purge a package you've got installed, typically this is because either

    1. It is a dependency for some other package, or
    2. Your package database is in an inconsistent state, usually because an installation didn't finish successfully (which is extremely rare unless you're running unstable, in which case it's quite common)

    In any event, there's really nothing we can do without at least seeing the error message you're getting.

    However, rather than posting the errors here, I recommend asking on debian-user.

  • Yeah, but can you safely dip your finger in it like you can with Liquid N? Can you tell I just finished my superconductivity lab?

    Its a very odd feeling to dip your finger into a liquid, pull it out, and find your finger completly dry.

    Quick disclaimer: Dip and remove quickly. Yes it feels neat, but it will feel much less neat if you don't yank that finger out quick-like.
  • How come NOBODY uses cpio? YOu would think that at least one distro would use it simply because "it's there", but no...........
  • Perhaps the proliferation of commercial Debian-based products will help to get the system tested and released by the end of the year... (please, please....) Speaking of which, what kind of support (if any) have those commercial distributions actually provided support to the process of solidifying Debian 2.2?

    Meanwhile, I guess those of us who mercilessly keep our machines on the bleeding edge regardless of the consequences will need to get around to reporting the breakages (mea culpa). Stability actually looks really good so far, though.

    In short, I'm excited. A new release, a new bleeding edge, a new world of pain for my computers!

    The question is, how many DVD's will be needed for the base Debain 2.2 distribution?
  • Actually, imbibing alchohol will slow your metabolism....

    But you are missing the point. The idea stated by mmmmbeer is to "carry a bottle of scotch".
    Obviously, the thinking is as follows:
    The idea is to carry with you additional mass (here, the bottle of scotch), causing you to exert the extra effort needed to carry the bottle, which will result in additional energy being released by your body, which becomes trapped in the insulating layers of dress and the blanket, thus creating an environment conducive to retaining your body heat.

    You see, in this way, the bottle of scotch makes you more comfortable despite the freeze. However, I'm not qualified to say whether the same principle will apply to Debain's Potato distribution; that calls for the opinion of a biotechnologist.
  • Since then, I have never been happier with any distro I've ever tried. Debian is absolutely wonderful, especially since I don't have to deal with dselect anymore (a simple dpkg --install on a deb will install it, similar to using rpm)

    Dselect IS your friend, specially when running unstable. dpkg is a low level tool! To install something with dpkg you have to download it and then install it with dpkg. Dselect, searches for packages, gives their descriptions, sorts the dependecies downloads and installs everything, you NEVER have to download a deb by hand, ever.

    Learn how to use dselect. I know that some people will start ranting that apt-get is better. Apt-get is not a dselect replacement. apt-get was designed to be used with dselect or console-apt(still very alpha) as frontend. There are many things that apt-get and dpkg won't do easily for you. Dselect was meant to make things easier. LEARN HOW TP USE IT.
  • I just hope the potato freeze will not take as long as slink. When slink froze it had ~150 release critical bugs, ~2000 packages, 4 architectures. It took about +4 months from freeze to release. Now, potato has +3000 packages, 5 architectures that are scheduled to release and ~230 relese critical bugs. I just home I will not have to wait for another 5 months for potato release, like it was with slink...
  • Yes, if you interrupt download you can continue later. Doing ftp installs over modem is much more convenient, you don't have to download "ALL for the stu'' only package that you need. AFAIK, only Debian and FreeBSD can do that ...

  • My Thoughts on Debian (Score:3)

    by Dr. Sp0ng ( 24354 ) <mspong&gmail,com> on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:37AM (#1566364) Homepage
    I had been running several RedHat boxes (I think "boxen" sounds stupid :-) over the last couple years, with some Slackware before that, and I had been hearing some very good things about Debian, but I had also been hearing some bad things - mainly about dselect. I decided to wipe one of my RedHat boxes and try out Debian, so I ordered Slink from CheapBytes a few weeks ago.

    After struggling with dselect (yes, it has really earned its reputation) for an hour, I finally got the system installed. I started playing around with it, and was having some problems - mainly that the programs which I was too lazy to download and had just copied from my roommate's RedHat 6 box just segfaulted on startup! I was getting very frustrated with this and was about to give up and reinstall RedHat 6 when I noticed that it was only using glibc 2.0.7, which RedHat 6 uses glibc 2.1. So I downloaded the debs of glibc 2.1 from the potato distribution, installed them, and all of a sudden everything worked perfectly.

    Since then, I have never been happier with any distro I've ever tried. Debian is absolutely wonderful, especially since I don't have to deal with dselect anymore (a simple dpkg --install on a deb will install it, similar to using rpm) I would definately recommend it to anybody who has a decent amount of experience using Linux (or UNIX in general) and is less than satisfied with RedHat. But I didn't even know that I was less than satisfied until I tried something else. I highly recommend it, and am definately going to try out potato once it's stable (probably on my Alpha as well... it's running RedHat 5.1 right now and is in dire need of an upgrade)

    "Software is like sex- the best is for free"
    -Linus Torvalds
  • > dselect is the most hated part of Debian. I much
    > much prefer the apt tools.

    Dselect is really horrible if you just intend to install a single package. If you want to examine every package to see if you want it, it is quite acceptable. On an unstable system where you usually want to upgrade all the package except all X-related ones (that would lock me out!), dselect is just wonderful. But when unsatisfiable dependencies of old packages starts looping the whole process of dselect, you will wonder why there cannot be something better.

    As the major tool to update Debian, dselect is not quite up-to-standard. On the other, as a handy tool, it is quite useful.
  • Settling on the same binary format as .rpm wouldn't be wise, certainly calling it .rpm as wel - after all we have enough confusion with folks installing RedHat RPMs on SuSE installations and occasionally vice-versa, as it is. Throwing .deb into the same melee wouldn't make it such a good key differentiator.

    And let's not forget that Debian can use / create / manipulate RPM files along with the rest of them, using alien (and the others can use .deb's, too!)

    Not even windoze has only one installation package format... .exe or .zip, InstallShield is only one tool out of many; take your pick according to what you like and what works best and is most flexible! (Says me, knowing that Debian will win in the end... ;)
  • Speed - RPM is an order of magnitude faster at doing queries

    True. Debian's state structures need to be overhauled (they are currently rfc822-style plaintext records as opposed to redhat's hashed db) but that must be done the Right Way(tm) - the state information is simply too important.

    Why does dpkg not offer a way to view untruncated package names with -l ?

    -l isn't meant to be used in scripts and the like. Try --get-selections.

    Package names are goofy. In redhat it's easy to guess what a package name would be. apt-get kicks ass but would be even better if I could say "apt-get install svgalib" rather than having to know that the svgalib package name is really "svgalibg1"

    Debian took the approach of having separate packages for incompatible library versions, that can both be installed simultaneously. Redhat took the approach of creating separate install and upgrade commands, so you can have multiple versions of the same package installed at the same time. Personally I like Debian's approach, and it makes tools like apt-get easier to implement. You can always go into dselect, type /svga, and find it thataway.

    The fact that the install is based on apt-get makes it somewhat uncomfortable to install on a space-limitted machine, since the install insists on downloading all packages before it starts installing them. Use CD, right? Ergh, what if this is a laptop or something w/o a CD-Rom.

    ...but if you don't have all those packages downloaded beforehand, the chances of something going wrong are much greater - and it can be a lot tougher to fix things without those packages, especially if ppp or dhcpcd or ftp or whatever breaks and you can't get back on the net. Partial-upgrade functionality would be nice but it doesn't exist yet. (although you can do apt-get install package1 package2 package3; apt-get autoclean; lather rinse repeat until your fingers rot away)

    Also, anything that uses a file:/ url in sources.list won't be cached - that includes remote filesystems such as nfs or smb.
    I dunno, I've found laptops without either some form of network connectivity or cdrom drives rather useless.

  • Also remember that hamm had about 1500 packages, 2 architectures, and perpetually hovered around the 80 release critical bugs mark until the final push to get it out the door was made. It shipped 5 months after freeze.

    The major holdup with hamm was libc6 (it caused a lot of breakage with some of the more seldom-used packages) and multiple architectures (debian had up until that point been x86 only).

    The major holdup with slink is that it wouldn't fit on one binary CD anymore, and dpkg methods and CD creation scripts had to be written from scratch to accomodate this.

    I'm very optimistic about potato. There are a lot of people focused on all aspects of release this time around. We had CD scripts months before freeze this time, boot floppies are in active development, the release critical buglist went down by 75 bugs last weekend (it's extremely active - about a dozen bugs being opened and closed daily - which for a pool that small is amazing), and in general more people are getting involved.

    And yes, hindsight is 20/20 :)

  • Re:Use of Debian (Score:4)

    by rcw-work ( 30090 ) on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:43AM (#1566369)
    #1. Not yet. But the idea is to make debconf [debian.org] be able to answer questions from an SQL database, a file accessible via HTTP, whatever, to replace asking questions at the console.

    #2. This is open to discussion, although most people with an opinion on the subject say apt-get/dpkg eats rpm for lunch. Both have severe deficiencies, but to me dpkg has fewer of them.

    For the equivalent solution with apt-get, you could make a directory on a server somewhere, run dpkg-scanpackages when you update something on that server (this creates the Packages file), and then have apt-get update; apt-get install packagename run every night from cron. That would update that package only.

    Or, if you don't have any complicated dependancies requiring automatic installation ordering (it doesn't sound like that) you could replace the 'rpm -U *.rpm' in your cron script with 'dpkg -i *.deb' :)

  • I *think* what happens is that, when cold, your body tries to keep the warm blood in the core of your body. It does this by constricting the arteries and capillaries in your limbs, reducing blood flow through them. Alchohol counters this effect and causes the capillaries to expand again. So, warm blood flows from your core into your limbs and makes you feel warm. Unfortunately, this also means that the cold blood that was trapped in your limbs gets circulated to your core, which can drop your core temperature...a Bad Thing. So, the warmth is only an illusion.

    Hopefully someone with more bio can elucidate further...
  • I beleive the command is `apt-get dselect-upgrade` actualy, since you are using --set-selections

  • Re:My Thoughts on Debian (Score:3)

    by .pentai. ( 37595 ) on Wednesday November 03, 1999 @08:47AM (#1566372) Homepage
    Yes, dselect is an evil EVIL beast.
    apt-get on the other hand is a god-send (great-powers-that-may-or-may-not-be-send for you atheists?)

    Anyways, I had a LOT of the same troubles when I started, then my friend did the wondrous command:
    apt-get install apt-find
    apt-find makes apt-get even easier, and I'm happy.
    No more trying to remember the package name, just find it in the list.

    This is possibly the only packaging system in linux that I've used that can touch FreeBSD's port library.
  • (slightly offtopic)

    I wonder how much more RedHat could make if they switched to dpkg (in a few quarters, once most of the few big deficiencies of dpkg are resolved). I know I refuse to refer people to the RedHat distro for the sole reason that I think RPM sucks. If RedHat used dpkg, I'd refer people to it (and probably buy it myself, just to support them). Anyone else doing the same thing?
    --------
    "I already have all the latest software."
  • RPM is now used as well by essentially all other distributions except Debian.

    Thats not true anymore. Corel, Storm and LibraNet is all based on Debian. I wonder who will make the next "Yet Another Debian Based Distribution"

    I've heard about the problems with installing SuSe stuff on a RedHat box. If people doesn't follow Debian Policy they shouldn't make .deb-files, but please use the tools they are great.

  • Of course not, who could bare to not have the most cutting edge, up to the minute stuff in their stable release...

    Oh wait, right now Debian is shipping stuff out of the Arc!
    There will ALWAYS be at least one vital, exciting brand new app sitting in "Incoming" just beggin for you to delay freeze.
    Experience tells you when to say "No more", and close the doors -- no matter who is left out in the cold. If you refuse to learn this lesson, cancel potato/ whatever and tell Debian users there will be no more stable releases.

  • I saw a post on list.debian.org from the PPC mailing list with install instructions. Basically you need to install linuxppc first, then dump the debian base2_2.tar.gz file on top of it after alot of tweaking you can run apt and install the rest of the system.

    It is very usable, but a little more behind then the other platforms package wise. feel free to email me if you have any questions: mcorde61@maine.edu

  • "So why learn dselect?"

    Because it will come back to haunt you. Just ask anyone who never bothered with DOS commands when they use Windows. Or, in 1991:

    "I just have a PC, I'll NEVER have to learn Unix commands."

    Yes, I said that . . . and now guess what I'm trying to do.

    Bye

  • Dselect IS your friend, specially when running unstable. dpkg is a low level tool! To install something with dpkg you have to download it and then install it with dpkg. Dselect, searches for packages, gives their descriptions, sorts the dependecies downloads and installs everything, you NEVER have to download a deb by hand, ever.

    I don't download debs by hand with apt-get, either. And I get the descriptions from the debian website, and apt-get handles the dependencies marvellously.

    Learn how to use dselect. I know that some people will start ranting that apt-get is better. Apt-get is not a dselect replacement. apt-get was designed to be used with dselect or console-apt(still very alpha) as frontend. There are many things that apt-get and dpkg won't do easily for you.

    like what?

    Dselect was meant to make things easier.

    Well it wholeheartedly failed on the user-friendliness front. It's one of the most annoying programs I've ever used.

    LEARN HOW TO USE IT.

    why?
  • Or it could just be that the people who made the software wanted to put their name on it, which I consider fine considering they /did/ make it. It's the name of the company, not the distro (coincidentally, the distro is named after the company/group, too)

    It's kinda like how it's okay to port software with "GNU" in its name to non-GNU operating systems. . .
  • Get the latest images from you local mirror and then consult http://www.debian.org/~porter for replacements. Works fine installing on my Starmax, if you don't miss a few features like the ftp/http, dhcp, and task manager that are not complete yet.
  • Get the latest images from your local mirror and then consult http://www.debian.org/~porter for replacements. Works fine installing on my Starmax, if you don't miss a few features like the ftp/http, dhcp, and task manager that are not complete yet.
  • Rock! tonight I shall run apt-get with abandon from all my Deb boxen, and I shall rejoice!
  • I have spent time with gnome and wondered about gdm. I installed the newest version for quite a while and have never had any success with it. It complains saying "module unknown" whenever I try to login as any user at the login prompt. And nothing I do seems to help. It appears to be that the package uses pam to get its data for logins or something but that may not be the problem. Oh that and I have some packages that refuse to purge themselves from my system (with dpkg --purge "package name").
  • there's a program called alien which does a fairly good job of converting between stampeede's, redhat's, and debian's package formats. Plus good ol' .tar.gz or .tgz (dos version/Slackware) format.
  • 1. They have to my knowledge "system profiles" or the type of installation that you would like say something for developers, servers, standard workstations, etc

    2. Quite excellent if you use packages that aren't too beta. Usually most of even the really far out pre alpha stuff usually works fine. Much better that a comparative level in Red Hat. As Rob mentioned apt-get can remotely update the system overnight or anytime with a cron job or such. I actually have never yet had to destroy my debian partition to upgrade from slink to any of the unstable stuff so I guess that says something.
  • Hey ppl

    Eight or so months ago I happened across a simple text file at the Debian website that described in depth how to convert one's system to Debian from RH. It seems to have completely disappeared, probably due to widening gaps between D and RH (2.2.x, updates to X, etc). If *ANYONE* has the slightest idea where I can find it please please PLEASE post a reply up here or to me personally. I'm willing to wager many people would love to see this file back up.

    Cheers
  • Cheers Chris, greatly appreciated!!

    Methinks I'll wait 'til the commercial vn of Debian comes out. Still no 'Net access...
  • Thank you gas -- here we go... off to check it out.
  • dselect is the most hated part of Debian. I much much prefer the apt tools. Already work is going on to replace dselect. I suspect that potato will be the last release that includes it. So why learn dselect?
  • Package name changed, try instead: apt-get install console-apt
  • Water freezes when it's temperature drops to 273.13 degrees Kelvin. Then, as temperature drops, ice starts to change... At exactly 0 degrees Kelvin, water is at the same time a gas, liquid and solid substance.

    But, freeze talked about here is about Debian's potato being frozen. So it has nothing to with water.

  • Well, i dotn know how every other distro does it, but ive never heard a harsh word with regard to debians package managment, indeed its probably debians strongest point. You could easy make a cron job to automatically check for and install updated packages, with the need for you to dod anything. For your 1st question, im not sure exactly, i think you can define a custom group of packages, so you should be able to move this around, never done it or really looked into that myself. You could try searching one of the Debian Mail list Archives [debian.org]
  • Actually, there is a very good reason to have a distribution specific package extension. It is quite common that a package from one distribution (say RH) when installed on another (say Debian) will cause the target system to break horribly. Thats why you should use the packages specific to your distribution. But if both distro's use the same extension, the likelyhood of confusing yourself and installing the wrong one is very high. Hence we differentiate the packages with a distribution specific extension. As for reusing the package manager... It is open source (GPL), so if another distro wants to use it, they can search through the code and replace all references to .deb with .yad (yet-another-distribution). Masklin
  • Don't forget, it can also help you pass out in the snow. That can kill you even if it isn't that cold otherwise. But lets face it, the morning after having a bunch of scotch, don't you tend to wish you'd frozen to death (or been beaten to death, or shot, or something)?
  • We're freezing here, too. It should do what I do. Get a warm blanket, dress in layers, and always carry a bottle of scotch. That'll keep you warm when it's freezing. :)
  • The next release of Debian is named "Woody"... Not sure who comes after Woody... I was told once, but I fergot... For all the latest Debian gossip and info, one should check out #debian on irc.debian.org.
  • There are, in fact, Debian images for download. However, currently, they only have the stable releases for download (slink is the current, some also have the previous version, hamm)... When potato finally goes gold (after the feature freeze and bug-testing periods) it will be posted too. The mirrors list can always be found at: http://cdimage.debian.org/ftp-mirrors.html Hope this helps.
  • Basically, the 'freeze' means that there will be no new features added to the distribution, and that they will begin a rigorous testing and bug-hunting period, wherein they attempt to make it even more bug-free and tightly integrated than before. Potato (Debian 2.2) should go gold within a couple (few?) months after the freeze, which is good news to all the paranoid people who've been running slink all this time because they were affraid to run 'unstable'... I'm not one of those. I've found potato to be more 'stable' than most commercial dists already (RH6, etc)... Nonetheless, this is good news. :)

  • Actually, at least for some versions of dselect
    --set-selections didn't do the job for you: you
    had to start dselect and Select to get updated
    package list. After that apt-get dselect-upgrade
    worked...

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