Upgrading to Debian 2.1

These notes explains how to upgrade a Debian 2.0 (hamm) workstation to Debian 2.1 (slink).

Prepare the Workstation

You must be root.

Ensure that only root is logged in, and at a Virtual Console. We don't want to do this upgrade under X.

If these programs are running, you'll want to stop them.

(Substitute kdm for xdm if appropriate.)

Mount the CD(s)

There are two binary CDs for the slink distribution. If you can only mount one, mount CD 1. If you can mount them both, then do so.

For example, if you're on a network you can mount CD 1 locally and nfs-mount CD 2.

Then edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file on the target workstation thusly:

deb file:/cdrom stable main
deb file:/mnt stable main contrib
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable non-US
Comment out the second CD mount if appropriate.

Now, before we actually start this thing, keep a copy of what's installed in a format that we can use later in the procedure:

dpkg --get-selections > my.selections

Do the First Pass with apt

Before you start, make sure there isn't anything broken with the current installation:

dpkg -l | grep -v ^ii

If this doesn't come up clean, fix what's broken before proceeding.

If it's installed you'll need to remove the doc-linux package because it doesn't exist in slink and leaving it in place will prevent apt from upgrading the doc-linux-text and doc-linux-html packages.

dpkg --purge doc-linux

Now get apt up to date with what's available and do the upgrade:

Before apt actually starts the upgrade it will tell you what it's going to do and ask if it's OK to proceed. At this point you should make sure than no packages are "held back." If any are, you should exit from apt and use dpkg to clear up the issues that are causing the packages to be held back.

During the course of the upgrade you'll be asked on several occasions whether to keep existing versions of configuration files or install new ones. The default is to keep existing files, but we only wish to keep existing files we know are specific to our installation, and get the newest version of all others, so in general answer Y to these questions.

Specific files for which we answer N are:

Handling Errors

A note about errors. If apt dies with an error message, do whatever is necessary to fix the error condition and then just restart Example: got an error trying to upgrade diald.

First try

Nope, how about this: That works.

Second Pass is with dselect

Before starting we need to do a little manual cleanup with apt and dpkg to prevent conflicts from halting dselect in its tracks.

We also need to make corresponding edits in the my.selections file you created earlier. While you're doing that, remove the kernel-image line -- we're going to upgrade our kernal manually and want dselect to leave it alone.

During the dselect run you may once again be asked about configuration files. Follow the same rules as before.

Install the Correct Custom Kernel

This may include setting up /etc/isapnp.conf and modifying /etc/modules. Add sound to /etc/modules just before auto.

Install Odds and Ends

Upgrade X Packages

These packages include native support for the Matrox G100 and G200 cards. The appropriate packages have been fetched from www.netgod.net/x and put in /usr/local/netgod/.

dpkg -i /usr/local/netgod/*.deb

Reboot and Clean Up

A little cleanup needs to be done for the linuxlogo package.

shutdown -r now

After the reboot execute

cat /dev/sndstat

to make sure the sound drivers got properly installed and initialized. This can be tested with

saytime &

Make sure the primary user of the workstation you're upgrading is in the audio group.

Some of the following may not be necessary, depending on the configuration of the workstation being upgraded.

Upgrade KDE

dpkg --purge rman tkman

This assumes the appropriate KDE packages have been fetched from the net and placed in /usr/local/kde/.

dpkg -i /usr/local/kde/*.deb

After the KDE upgrade, the following line must be deleted from /etc/mailcap:

text/plain; korganizer;test=test "$DISPLAY" != ""

Install Symbolic Links

Owing to a bug in the ispell package we need to do the following:

Things to Put on a CD

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Last modified: 24-July-1999 and Copyright 1999 by Pann McCuaig. All rights reserved.