On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, Alexander Reichle-Schmehl wrote:
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:04:24 +0100
From: Alexander Reichle-Schmehl <toli...@debian.org>
To: debian-annou...@lists.debian.org
Subject: Security Support for Debian 4.0 to be terminated
Resent-Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:04:41 +0000 (UTC)
Resent-From: debian-annou...@lists.debian.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Security Support for Debian 4.0 to be terminated pr...@debian.org
January 21st, 2010 http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100121
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Security Support for Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 to be terminated on February 15th
One year after the release of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 alias "lenny" and
nearly three years after the release of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 alias "etch"
the security support for the old distribution (4.0 alias "etch") is
coming to an end next month. The Debian project is proud to be able to
support its old distribution for such a long time and even for one year
after a new version has been released.
The Debian project released Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 alias "lenny" on the
15th of February 2009. Users and Distributors have been given a one-year
timeframe to upgrade their old installations to the current stable
release. Hence, the security support for the old release of 4.0 is going
to end in February 2010 as previously announced.
Previously announced security updates for the old release will continue
to be available on security.debian.org.
Security Updates
----------------
The Debian Security Team provides security updates for the current
distribution via <http://security.debian.org/>. Security updates for the
old distribution are also provided for one year after the new
distribution has been released or until the current distribution is
superseded, whatever happens first.
Upgrading to Debian 5.0 alias "lenny"
-------------------------------------
Upgrades to Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 from the previous release, Debian
GNU/Linux 4.0 alias "etch" are automatically handled by the aptitude
package management tool for most configurations, and to a certain degree
also by the apt-get package management tool. As always, Debian GNU/Linux
systems can be upgraded painlessly, in place, without any forced
downtime, but it is strongly recommended to read the release notes[1] for
possible issues, and for detailed instructions on installing and
upgrading.
1: http://www.debian.org/releases/lenny/releasenotes
In trying to follow the convoluted and difficult instructions for the
forced upgrade, Debian again forcing abortion of a system upgrade, I am
once again (I was thwarted several months ago, and gave up, as mentioned
on the mailing list) prevented from performing the required upgrade from
Debian 4 to Debian 5.
The mailserver is running on a pentium MMX. The kernel version shows as:
"
:~# uname -r
2.4.18-bf2.4
"
The release notes of the installation process, requires the kernel to be
a 2.6 or later kernel.
In following the instructions, and, tring to install the 486 version of
the kernel, I get a screen that states:
"Configuring linux-image-2.6.18-6-486
You are attempting to install an initrd kernel image (version
2.6.18-6-486) This will not work unless you have
configured your boot loader to use initrd. (An initrd image is a
kernel image that expects to use an INITial Ram Disk
to mount a minimal root file system into RAM and use that for
booting).
As a reminder, in order to configure LILO, you need to add an
'initrd=/initrd.img' to the image=/vmlinuz stanza of
your /etc/lilo.conf
I repeat, You need to configure your boot loader -- please read your
bootloader documentation for details on how to
add initrd images.
If you have already done so, and you wish to get rid of this message,
please put
"do_initrd = Yes"
in /etc/kernel-img.conf. Note that this is optional, but if you do
not, you will continue to see this message whenever
you install a kernel image using initrd.
Do you want to abort now?"
Running man on lilo, refers a user to lilo.conf .
Running man on lilo.conf, gives the following.
"
initrd=<name>
Specifies the initial ramdisk image to be loaded with the
kernel. The image will contain modules needed at
boot time, such as network and scsi drivers. See man
pages for mkinitrd(8).
"
Trying that, gives
"
:~# man mkinitrd
No manual entry for mkinitrd
"
And thus, it appears that the upgrade from Debian 4 to Debian 5, was
designed by Kafka, as an exercise in "Kafkaesque obscurantism", to quote
a learned man.
Why is trying to run Debian Linux, designed to be made so increasingly
difficult, and, is it really possible, to properly upgrade from one
version of Debian Linux, without having to buy a new computer, every
time that Debian puts out a new version of Linux, or, was the
objective of Debian 5, to prevent users from upgrading from one version
of Debian Linux, to the latest version?
Why, in the time that Debian 5 has replaced Debian 4 as Debian "stable",
especially, as Debian 4 will no longer be supported, has a workable
process of upgrading from Debian 4 to Debian 5, not been released?
From the above information, that Debian 5 was released as the latest
Debian "stable", on 15 February last year, it is unfortunate that a
workable process to upgrade from Debian 4, is still not available, and
that support for Debian 4 is to be eliminated within a couple of weeks,
before it is possible to upgrade from Debian 4 to Debian 5.
--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............
"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992
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