Thanks Bob, Hit a snag, I thought the upgrade would update the kernel and it's left me with a mismatch. I can't now log into the machine, no ssh and no keyboard. I think I'm going to try and use a netinst disk to rescue the system, unless you've any other ideas? I remember in Linux a long time ago there was a method to step through the boot sequence item by item. Could I wait until the network came up, then drop into a shell?
Thanks James On 15 December 2014 at 20:10, Bob Proulx <b...@proulx.com> wrote: > > James Allsopp wrote: > > I've not had access to my machine for a while, and I've just tried to do > an > > upgrade from squeeze to wheezy using the instructions found here; > > http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-upgrade-debian-squeeze-to-wheezy > > Why are you using those instructions instead of the official Debian > ones? > > https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/index.en.html > > > and I got to the > > aptitude full-upgrade > > part which seemed to hang > > If you read the howtoforge instructions carefully you will see that it > says: > > Instead of using apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade, you can > also use the following commands, but please note that on > > http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html > it reads "The upgrade process for some previous releases recommended > the use of aptitude for the upgrade. This tool is not recommended for > upgrades from squeeze to wheezy.". For me, aptitude has worked fine > for all Squeeze to Wheezy upgrades so far. > > Therefore when you are using the "aptitude full-upgrade" part above > you are explicitly going outside of the official recommended > procedure. > > I strongly recommend the "apt-get upgrade" and "apt-get dist-upgrade" > approach instead as documented in the offical Debian release notes. > > > I've tried > > dpkg --configure -a > > apt-get -f install > > > > but can't get anything to work. > > Did you forget to "apt-get update" after changing the sources.list file. > > apt-get update > > Systems can be complex with complex interactions. If every system > were identical then it would be easy to test those and produce a plan > that would work for everyone. So first let me say that it is hard > because only your system is your system. > > > Here's a list of the objections, but I don't know how to solve them, > short > > of installing every package manually. > > > > If you've any ideas, I would be grateful to receive them, > > My official recommendation would be to follow the instructions in the > release notes as that is the best complete source of knowledge on how > to upgrade. > > I will guess that your problem here is some additional undesired > source in your /etc/apt/sources.list or /etc/apt/sources.list.d/* > files. > > Ensure you have a good system back. > > Reset sources.list back to Squeeze: > apt-get update > apt-get upgrade > apt-get dist-upgrade # check removal list carefully! > apt-get autoremove > dpkg -l | grep ^rc > apt-get purge ... > find /etc -name '*.dpkg-*' -o -name '*.ucf-*' > rm ... > dpkg-query -W -f='${Conffiles}\n' | awk '$NF=="obsolete"{print$1}' > apt-get purge ... > > Reset sources.list to Wheezy: > apt-get update > apt-get upgrade > apt-get dist-upgrade # check removal list carefully! > apt-get autoremove > dpkg -l | grep ^rc > apt-get purge ... > find /etc -name '*.dpkg-*' -o -name '*.ucf-*' > rm ... > dpkg-query -W -f='${Conffiles}\n' | awk '$NF=="obsolete"{print$1}' > apt-get purge ... > > As you can see I suggest cleaning to be very important. Leaving a lot > of the lint behind can and does often cause real upgrade problems that > does not exist on a clean system. > > When there is a conflict here I defer to the official Debian release > notes. > > Bob >
