I have upgraded Debian from Sarge to Etch on various systems and did not run into any problems. Well done, Debian guys!
The following tutorial is based on Tim Bormann’s tutorial. I give you a quick-and-dirty insight how I have done it.
Before you start, make sure you got plenty of time (an upgrade may take anything between 30 minutes and 3 hrs) and backup at least your system configuration:
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dpkg --get-selections "*" > pkglst.txt # to restore: # dpkg --set-selections > pkglst.txt # apt-get -f install OR apt-get dselect-upgrade # create backup of /etc tar cfj etc.tar.bz2 /etc |
Under Debian Sarge, make sure everything is up-to-date:
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$ apt-get dist-upgrade |
Now, change your source list by editing /etc/apt/sources.list, replace all ’sarge› occurrences with ‹etch› (don’t use ‹testing› !). For Switzerland you might use the Switch mirror:
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deb http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/debian/ etch main non-free contrib deb-src http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/debian/ etch main non-free contrib deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free |
Let’s start upgrading. I definitely recommend the following order:
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$ apt-get update $ apt-get install initrd-tools $ apt-get install apt $ apt-get update $ apt-get dist-upgrade |
This might take a long time. Make sure you answer all the questions and replace all configuration files with the maintainer ones prior to reviewing them and merging your changes.
At the end, do some cleanup by running ‹dselect› and removing all obsolete packages. Also you should now install the new kernel images and reboot when everything looks fine.
