tlug: lots of thanks, a few successes, lib question

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Ulrike" == Ulrike Schmidt <ulrike@example.com> writes:

    Ulrike> The question is: do I want that or not? What can happen? 
    Ulrike> It seems I need the new xserver to get X working ... Does
    Ulrike> that mean I have to get the newest debian version also? I
    Ulrike> don't mind, if it is stable .. is it?

Actually, slink is quite old now.  The next version of debian is
`potato', which is "frozen", ie, just about to be released.  It's
quite stable; I highly recommend updating your whole distribution now.
If you can get your hands on a potato CD, things are easy; just do it.
(Back to your coffin, Chris, I know that (a) dpkg != manual and (b)
Debian != Linux, OK?)

If you are using the network and are short on disk space or time (you
could end needing to download several hundred MB), and are using
dselect, you may want to use the `H' (key names are case-sensitive)
command to put packages on "hold".

First, telinit S to get to single user and minimize the amount of
running stuff that can get confused.  The installers will probably
want to futz with your network and with X (or do you have any X yet? I
guess not); better to have daemons and stuff temporarily turned off.
Use the o command to get the list sorted by urgency, then put ALL the
"extra" and "optional" packages on hold.  Then put ALL "doc" and
"devel" packages on hold in Standard.  What's left is probably
manageable.

If not, put all emacs-related (including my beloved XEmacs ;) and
TeX-related packages on hold.

dselect will not want to let you do this, it will keep throwing you
into the "conflict resolution" screen :(.  Just ignore its complaints
by hitting `D' (for "Dammit, Do what I say!", I guess) to reset all
packages to your intended state, then "Q" to quit conflict
resolution.  You'll have to do this every time you put a block on
hold, and when you exit selection to go to install.

To reverse the process, use the `G' key to unhold each group of
packages, download them, and install in reverse order.  It is safe to
take a break from the process at any time, I think, but some packages
may be unusable from your point of view because optional facilities
you consider essential to your convenience have not yet been upgraded.

I do not recommend upgrading to `woody', the current unstable
distribution.  I had few problems with potato (I moved to potato as
soon as it was available), but woody has had a lot of dependency
problems where a package I use a lot gets stalled for a while because
the main package has been updated but some required library doesn't
get released.  It's also had a large number of problems with
installation scripts etc.

-- 
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Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences       Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
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