tlug: Debian "slink" (development branch)

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

I wanted something that the stable distribution wouldn't give me, so I 
am updating my playpen to Debian slink (the development branch of
Debian).  Although dselect is still a pretty clunky curses-based
interface, other aspects of the upgrade and package management process
are improving greatly.

The "apt" method for getting packages looks really good; it is very
smart about analyzing dependencies and creates a DAG so that the
things that need to get installed first do get installed first.  It
has a few bugs yet that you'll need to watch out for if you're
thinking of going to Debian "slink".

(1) unlike the old dpkg-ftp, if you don't have enough space in
/var/..., it just says "you don't have enough space" and quits.
Evidently maintaining consistency of the user and the dependency graph 
is beyond it :-)  Blanket upgrades are a bit tough in this
circumstance, though.

(2) If it fails to fetch some files, it just quits; it doesn't try to
figure out what it _can_ install safely.  Trying again seems to work
pretty well, though---except watch out for ftp.debian.or.jp; they
don't seem to maintain a complete or up-to-date mirror :-(

Have fun at the nomikai.  Think about all the pain I'm going through
grading exams ... laugh, and have a beer for me.

-- 
University of Tsukuba                Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences       Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
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What are those two straight lines for?  "Free software rules."
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