Debian Lenny and release dates

[Matt Price]

On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 11:05 -0400, John Moniz wrote:
> I have a fairly old Debian stable release on my home file server (either 
> Woody or the one before). Can I still do a dist-upgrade? And what would 
> that get me, the next release up from the one I have or would I end up 
> with the latest stable release?
> 

usually the procedure is to do an apt-get upgrade, preferably just
before lenny releases -- this will get your system into alignment with
the systems that debian devs are using for testing upgrades.  then, when
lenny releases -- or by modifying /etc/apt/sources.list -- do an apt-get
dist-upgrade.  


least, that's how i've always done it.

matt


> Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 02:20:23AM -0400, JoeHill wrote:
> >   
> >> Saw this article just now:
> >>
> >> http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=3312
> >>
> >> Not really concerned that 'Debian is in trouble', but I am curious about how
> >> the releases work.
> >>     
> >
> > Once in a while, debian manages to get the critical bug count very low,
> > and any remaining packages with bugs that are not that important are
> > kicked out of the release.  Then the release is declared stable, and the
> > previous stable release is named old-stable.  A new testing release (The
> > next one I believe is to be named Squeeze or something like that) is
> > then named based on the new stable release.  Lots of tested packages
> > without known bugs in unstable are then let in to testing, and
> > development continues for a few more years until once again a stable
> > release happens.  In the past there was no testing, and the elimination
> > of bugs had to happen in unstable until it was in a state that could be
> > released.  That was hard and painful and held up new development.  I
> > think testing started after the release of 2.2.
> >
> >   
> >> If I am running Lenny, and want to maintain a system that always has relatively
> >> up to date software (not necessarily bleeding edge), what is the process to
> >> follow when Lenny finally is finally released? Is that a 'dist-upgrade', or is
> >> that only for going, say, from Lenny to Sid?
> >>     
> >
> > dist-upgrade is the only proper way to ever upgrade.  The upgrade option
> > is pretty much useless as it refuses to install anything new or remove
> > anything old, which during development is often necesary.  The only
> > place plain upgrade tends to work is getting security updates on a
> > stable release.
> >
> > Oh and going to Sid should only be done by those that know what they are
> > doing, since Sid is the unstable development branch.  Sid is never going
> > to be a stable release.  After all Sid was the kid in Toy Story that
> > tortured and broke all the toys.
> >
> >   
> >> Sorry if I sound thick, but I've been doing clean installs of Mandriva releases
> >> every year or so for a long time, having trouble wrapping my head around this
> >> new scheme.
> >>     
> >
> > New scheme?  It's been going on this way for well over a decade.
> --
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-- 
Matt Price
matt.price-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
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