2017-11-29 14:45 GMT+08:00 Jan <j...@dwrox.net>: > > > On 28.11.2017 17:58, The Wanderer wrote: >> >> On 2017-11-28 at 11:53, Patrick Bartek wrote: >> >>> On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 10:28:57 -0500 The Wanderer >>> <wande...@fastmail.fm> wrote: >>> >>>> I've run across someone who says her machine is running Debian >>>> oldoldoldstable or maybe even oldoldoldoldstable, and who >>>> consequently can't upgrade to newer Debian. >>>> >>>> I seem to recall that there *is* a way to do step-wise upgrades of >>>> such old systems, i.e. upgrading from oldoldoldoldstable to >>>> oldoldoldstable, then to oldoldstable, then to oldstable, then to >>>> stable. However, I'm stumped as to how to actually get started on >>>> doing that. >>>> >>>> The last few steps of this are straightforward; oldoldstable is >>>> still available in the repos, as far as I'm aware. The first ones >>>> are more of a problem; if I understand matters correctly, anything >>>> prior to oldoldstable is removed from the live repos, although its >>>> .deb files are still maintained on e.g. snapshot.debian.org. (Which >>>> doesn't really suffice for the equivalent of a dist-upgrade, >>>> because you'd have to manually download all the correct .debs by >>>> hand and then install them with dpkg.) >>>> >>>> Is there in fact a way to manage the first steps of this stepwise >>>> upgrade, from one aged-out-of-the-repos release to another? >>>> >>>> If so, any pointers to information on how to go about it? >>> >>> >>> Save yourself time and lots of problems, back up your data and do a >>> clean install of the current Debian release. >> >> >> A: This isn't me, this is someone I encountered. >> >> B: That's not always a viable option, depending on the circumstances. >> It's probably the easier option when it is viable, but that doesn't mean >> it should be the only option considered, for cases when something else >> may be more viable. >> >>> To do what you want requires dist-upgrading each release, in order, >>> one-at-a-time, then troubleshooting each dist-upgrade once done with >>> no guarantees it will work. >> >> >> Yes, of course. That's established procedure, and it's entirely >> reasonable to expect people to follow it. (Is there any reason it >> shouldn't work, when it worked for people at the time when those >> releases were made?) >> >>> Be sure to read and explicitly follow the dist-upgrade instructions >>> in the Release Notes for each release. Many times there are special >>> things that must be done. Just dist-upgrading from your current old >>> install to Stretch, skipping all those inbetween is "not >>> recommended," meaning it won't work. >> >> >> Of course. That's exactly why accessible repositories containing those >> older releases are needed; my question was about how / where to manage >> those, and that was answered in the first reply. >> > > As a friendly recommendation: > If it was about me, I would encourage to backup the home directories as well > as mail or similar, depending what other kind of services running under the > particular system. > > Backup the data to an external usb drive or the whole source drive if you > are keen on that, for example. Then do a "clean" install of a new system on > the original drive. Otherwise you might run into issues, where you might > miss out on an important package, if you snapshot upgrade one by one. > > Running such a old and obsolete system is not only a security risk, but also > in other areas where improvements has been made, you miss out on a lot. This > was not the question of course, but it simply doesn't make much sense to > keep such an old operating system around which is not even actively > supported by documentation or people likewise anymore. > > And it might not simply be worth the hassle to upgrade step by step, > possible breaking something in the process and troubleshoot why one package > depends on another or crippling other services, having obsolete folders or > even configuration files and settings laying around, which are not needed > anymore. As stated by other people here, it might and perhaps will, take > much longer time to troubleshoot everything or simply end up to be > impossible to do correctly. > > Better clean and start from scratch install with a known supported > installation. > Ensure just to backup mail(dirs), mail, .ssh, .config or similar folders in > "home" (or better the whole home folders" or "var" or other locations which > might contain data you need. Or "etc" for configuration settings - but "etc" > content, might and will most likely have changed dramatically depending on > what was installed previously. > > To backup the software list of what was installed on the system, I would use > something like an "apt list | grep installed" and pipe the output into a > file. But for "apt-get" this does not seem to be an option, so perhaps > theres another way to get a list of installed packages using dpkg or such, > I'm just not aware of that. > This way, you can then, after some cleanup in an editor for example, pipe > the output of listed installed packages into the new system apt/apt-get and > reinstall as available in the repository everything that was installed > earlier, most likely. > > Of course, after the home directories have been created accordingly using > add user and copy and paste selectively from home to home of the backup > media. > > Good luck! >
I recommend doing P2V (creating a virtual machine straight from physical machine) using VMware Converter so you can try upgrading inside VMware Workstation or something similar.