Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
* Sean 'Shaleh' Perry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2001.10.24 01:24:57-0700]: > technically, apt-get upgrade will work. dist-upgrade has a few more rules in > it to make large upgrades go smoothly. not in the case when a package, say bind9 will be split into bind9 and bind9-utils (yes, i had to work with suse systems - so glad i am with debian) since upgrade only upgrades already installed packages, but doesn't pull new ones, even if they are necessary. -- martin; (greetings from the heart of the sun.) \ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:"; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ever stop to think, and forget to start again? pgp2wqatEM1RM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
On Wed, 2001-10-24 at 13:20, Erik Steffl wrote: > I used to use aptitude this way: > > u (to update package list) > g (to see what's going to happen) > g (to make it happen) > > now it doesn't work (the actions are a lot different from what apt-get > dist-upgrade would do) > > what's the secret? > > (I already asked this few times but got no responses - does aptitude > work for anybody?) I just started testing aptitude a few days ago, and that's exactly what I do. It's worked for me so far. I don't think it does a dist-upgrade, only upgrade. (The man page is not too clear on that issue, but I think it would mention dist-upgrade if that is what it was doing.)
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Brian Nelson wrote: > Suppose you wanted to install galeon, which depends on > mozilla-browser. So, you did an 'apt-get install galeon', which installs > mozilla-browser as well. Then you try galeon for a while, and also > check out mozilla. You end up preferring mozilla, and use that as > your regular browser. After a while, you 'apt-get remove galeon' > since you no longer use it. However, according to your scheme, > mozilla, which you wanted to keep, also gets removed. debfoster handles this case though. It simply prompts you once about each package that is installed. It perhaps needs to be more tightly integrated with apt and dselect, so that it can skip promting you about the package like galeon in your example, while continuing to promt about packages like mozilla. If you've not tried it, I highly recommend installing it on one of your smallest and most tightly focused debian systems, and letting it do its thing. -- see shy jo
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Justin Hahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > especially seeing as apt-get and aptitude are both much easier to deal with > than dselect in the eyes of everyone I've ever talked to. (Myself > included.) Not me. I've tried aptitude a couple of times and found the interface so unintuitive that I had to kill it from another terminal window. Give me dselect any day. All you need to know is RET, Space, X, =, and Q. -- Dave Carrigan ([EMAIL PROTECTED])| Yow! I'll clean your ROOM!! I UNIX-Apache-Perl-Linux-Firewalls-LDAP-C-DNS | know some GOOD stories, too!! Seattle, WA, USA| All about ROAD Island's, HUSH http://www.rudedog.org/ | Puppies, and how LUKE finds GOLD | on his LAND!!
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Brian Nelson wrote: > Using a contrived example: > > Suppose you wanted to install galeon, which depends on > mozilla-browser. So, you did an 'apt-get install galeon', which installs > mozilla-browser as well. Then you try galeon for a while, and also > check out mozilla. You end up preferring mozilla, and use that as > your regular browser. After a while, you 'apt-get remove galeon' > since you no longer use it. However, according to your scheme, > mozilla, which you wanted to keep, also gets removed. That's why I mentioned having an option to prompt the user. Additionally, one could limit automatic, unprompted removal to libraries. So when you remove galeon, you get prompted to remove mozilla, and you'd say no if you want to keep it. But if you do choose to remove mozilla, then libnspr and libnss automatically go away if nothing else depends on them. There is also a category of non-library packages which people don't usually use directly, and which one only installs to enhance other programs -- metamail, for example. If you're using a mail client that likes having metamail around, you install it, but then when you switch to another client that doesn't care about metamail, it would be nice to be told that it wasn't needed anymore, without also being told that there are no dependencies on the Gimp, Emacs, xmms, etc. (apps which one wants to use directly). > It gets even trickier if you consider using dselect, since it's > awfully hard to decide on whether a package was installed only because > dselect asked, or because the user agreed with dselect's choices > (ie. really wanted to keep those packages installed). True, dselect complicates matters. You'd have to have some cooperation between dselect and apt to make it work. And even then it would be potentially problematic. Just the other day I had to do a lot of hand-selecting of things in dselect to make it understand that I wanted to switch from libsdl1.2 to the new libsdl1.2-debian. Poor dselect found the situation rather confusing. I suppose you'd really have to have two different kinds of selection in dselect -- "Install this unconditionally" and "Install this only to satisfy dependencies". The distinction would thus be left to the user, at install time, rather than to software that could probably never be clever enough to get it right 100% of the time. > That's why it's really only useful to act as deborphan does, and only > choose to remove libs that no longer are depended upon. Even that > isn't foolproof, however. Well, as long as all your software is packaged (nothing in /usr/local/bin) and all every package's dependencies are right, it's pretty safe. I don't remember ever seeing anything break because I removed a library that deborphan said I didn't need anymore. In practical terms, deborphan is adequate, I suppose. It would be nice to be able to automate this kind of cleanup as part of the usual upgrade procedure, though. Craig
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Justin Hahn wrote: > > > >Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. > > > > Brian, > > Why this assertion? I thought dselect was on its way out... > > especially seeing as apt-get and aptitude are both much easier to deal with > than dselect in the eyes of everyone I've ever talked to. (Myself included.) I used to use aptitude but it gradually got worse up to the point of being unusable - when I do update nad then upgrade it only lists few packages to be updated (even though apt-get dist-upgrade lists a lot of packges to be updated). I used to use aptitude this way: u (to update package list) g (to see what's going to happen) g (to make it happen) now it doesn't work (the actions are a lot different from what apt-get dist-upgrade would do) what's the secret? (I already asked this few times but got no responses - does aptitude work for anybody?) TIA erik
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Craig Dickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Nelson wrote: > > > Mark Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > Mind you, one thing I wish would happen is that the system would offer > > > to deselect things that were only selected because of a dependency of > > > something you just deselected. > > > > That's a tricky task for the system to handle because it can't read > > your mind. There are tools like deborphan which find libs (or > > anything else) that are no longer depended on. > > Deborphan isn't bad, but there's really no rocket science or mind > reading involved in getting apt to do what Mark wants. All that is > required is that when a package is automatically installed because of a > dependency, apt should set a flag in that package's entry in the package > database. At some later time, when the package was no longer required, > the flag would cause apt to automatically remove it. There could further > be a user-configuration option to prompt before automatically removing > such packages. Using a contrived example: Suppose you wanted to install galeon, which depends on mozilla-browser. So, you did an 'apt-get install galeon', which installs mozilla-browser as well. Then you try galeon for a while, and also check out mozilla. You end up preferring mozilla, and use that as your regular browser. After a while, you 'apt-get remove galeon' since you no longer use it. However, according to your scheme, mozilla, which you wanted to keep, also gets removed. It gets even trickier if you consider using dselect, since it's awfully hard to decide on whether a package was installed only because dselect asked, or because the user agreed with dselect's choices (ie. really wanted to keep those packages installed). That's why it's really only useful to act as deborphan does, and only choose to remove libs that no longer are depended upon. Even that isn't foolproof, however. -- Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
On 24 Oct 2001, Brian Nelson wrote: (snip) > dpkg-ftp is considered obsolete. It's been replaced by apt. Damn, that's annoying. ): I suppose that eventually I'll have to switch back to apt, then. Hopefully it'll work better for me by then. > Mark Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Mind you, one thing I wish would happen is that the system would offer to > > deselect things that were only selected because of a dependency of > > something you just deselected. > > That's a tricky task for the system to handle because it can't read > your mind. There are tools like deborphan which find libs (or It wouldn't have to - when you deselect Q, it could just draw your attention to anything that is selected that Q depends on that nothing else depends on. (I would have used "X" instead of "Q" but that might have been even more confusing as a generic definition. (-:) > anything else) that are no longer depended on. There are many such packages, unfortunately. (-: Thanks, though - I hadn't noticed deborphan. -- Mark
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Brian Nelson wrote: > Mark Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Mind you, one thing I wish would happen is that the system would offer > > to deselect things that were only selected because of a dependency of > > something you just deselected. > > That's a tricky task for the system to handle because it can't read > your mind. There are tools like deborphan which find libs (or > anything else) that are no longer depended on. Deborphan isn't bad, but there's really no rocket science or mind reading involved in getting apt to do what Mark wants. All that is required is that when a package is automatically installed because of a dependency, apt should set a flag in that package's entry in the package database. At some later time, when the package was no longer required, the flag would cause apt to automatically remove it. There could further be a user-configuration option to prompt before automatically removing such packages. Testing all the installed packages to see which ones should be automatically removed might be a little time-consuming, so this functionality might be separate from "apt-get update" -- perhaps a new command such as "apt-get houseclean" would be appropriate. Craig
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Mark Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote: > > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > > Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. > > > > ROTFLMAO!! > > TBH, I get on very well with dselect. I tried using its apt access method > for a while, but sometimes it would do things wrong (like trying to > download packages that weren't selected in dselect), and each time I asked > Ian Jackson WTF dselect/dpkg was up to he'd say that the annoying bit was > apt's doing. Since switching back to dpkg-ftp it's all become problem-free > again. > > Lots of people seem to like apt and whatever pretty front ends you can get > for it, so obviously it can't be all that bad, but is dselect/dpkg-ftp's > future still pretty secure? I hope so, but I'm worried. dpkg-ftp is considered obsolete. It's been replaced by apt. > Mind you, one thing I wish would happen is that the system would offer to > deselect things that were only selected because of a dependency of > something you just deselected. That's a tricky task for the system to handle because it can't read your mind. There are tools like deborphan which find libs (or anything else) that are no longer depended on. -- Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Doug Fields <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. > > Why this assertion? I thought dselect was on its way out... 1) dselect isn't on its way out 2) unlike apt-get, it's allows for interactive package selection during upgrades 3) it fails more gracefully than apt-get if a package doesn't install correctly during an upgrade 4) it handles "recommends/suggests" somewhat well dselect isn't hard to use, it just takes a little while to become accustomed to its behavior. It's very smart, but kinda talks with a strange accent, if you know what I mean. -- Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Aurelio Turco wrote: > > No reinstalls are ever needed with debian. This is not a Microsoft > > OS. Go, tell 'em, brother! > So, "apt-get dist-upgrade" automatically purges > old and no longer needed files and directory structures? Well, apt-get --purge dist-upgrade will remove old and no longer needed files and directory structures. Unless of course, you've fucked with the package system, ie. creating files in /usr et al. I moved from slink to potato to woody to sid and then switched a couple of times between woody and sid. The system I'm running is some four years old now and I never had to do any reinstall whatsoever. To make a long story short: Debian's apt-get system just rocks. Cheers, Viktor -- Viktor Rosenfeld WWW: http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~rosenfel/ pgpEgdl1nEYLn.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
> >Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. > > Brian, > Why this assertion? I thought dselect was on its way out... especially seeing as apt-get and aptitude are both much easier to deal with than dselect in the eyes of everyone I've ever talked to. (Myself included.) --jeh
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. > > ROTFLMAO!! TBH, I get on very well with dselect. I tried using its apt access method for a while, but sometimes it would do things wrong (like trying to download packages that weren't selected in dselect), and each time I asked Ian Jackson WTF dselect/dpkg was up to he'd say that the annoying bit was apt's doing. Since switching back to dpkg-ftp it's all become problem-free again. Lots of people seem to like apt and whatever pretty front ends you can get for it, so obviously it can't be all that bad, but is dselect/dpkg-ftp's future still pretty secure? I hope so, but I'm worried. Mind you, one thing I wish would happen is that the system would offer to deselect things that were only selected because of a dependency of something you just deselected. -- Mark
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. Brian, Why this assertion? I thought dselect was on its way out... Cheers, Doug
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. ROTFLMAO!! Mike. -- "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" -- Albert Einstein.
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
On Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 09:13:34AM +, Aurelio Turco wrote: > Some will argue that it is good to do a complete reinstall > occasionally, atleast on major distribution upgrades, as > a kind of periodic spring cleaning (ensuring old and no > longer needed files and directory structures etc get > purged from the system). > Distributions like Mandrake and Redhat seem to imply this. > Debian seems to prefer otherwise? Yes, we do. There are tools (like 'cruft') that can help you do that sort of spring-cleaning. Reinstalling is really using an enormous hammer to crack a rather small nut. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Brian Nelson wrote: > > Aurelio Turco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Brian Nelson wrote: > > > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Shepherd) writes: > > > > When Woody is released as 3.0 and becomes Stable do I just so a > > > > "apt-get dist-upgrade"? > > > > > > Yup. > > > > > > > Or do I need to do some kind of reinstall? > > > > > > Nope. > > > > > > > Some will argue that it is good to do a complete reinstall > > occasionally, atleast on major distribution upgrades, as > > a kind of periodic spring cleaning (ensuring old and no > > longer needed files and directory structures etc get > > purged from the system). > > Distributions like Mandrake and Redhat seem to imply this. > > Debian seems to prefer otherwise? > > No reinstalls are ever needed with debian. This is not a Microsoft > OS. > So, "apt-get dist-upgrade" automatically purges old and no longer needed files and directory structures?
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
"Sean 'Shaleh' Perry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On 24-Oct-2001 Brian Nelson wrote: > >> When Woody is released as 3.0 and becomes Stable do I just so a > >> "apt-get dist-upgrade"? > > > > Yup. > > > > technically, apt-get upgrade will work. dist-upgrade has a few more rules in > it to make large upgrades go smoothly. An 'apt-get upgrade' would likely leave you with many (100s?) of packages held back. It only upgrades packages currently installed, and will never install new packages or remove old ones. An 'apt-get dist-upgrade', on the other hand, would most likely not hold any packages back, as it "intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of packages; apt-get has a 'smart' conflict resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the expense of less important ones if necessary." Of course, the smoothest way to upgrade is to use dselect. -- Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Aurelio Turco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Nelson wrote: > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Shepherd) writes: > > > When Woody is released as 3.0 and becomes Stable do I just so a > > > "apt-get dist-upgrade"? > > > > Yup. > > > > > Or do I need to do some kind of reinstall? > > > > Nope. > > > > Some will argue that it is good to do a complete reinstall > occasionally, atleast on major distribution upgrades, as > a kind of periodic spring cleaning (ensuring old and no > longer needed files and directory structures etc get > purged from the system). > Distributions like Mandrake and Redhat seem to imply this. > Debian seems to prefer otherwise? No reinstalls are ever needed with debian. This is not a Microsoft OS. -- Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: ... ... > >> Or do I need to do some kind of reinstall? > > > > Nope. > > > > There have been Debian machines that have been updated for 5 years. In fact > the joke among us Debian developers is that our installer is so bad because > most of us only see it once. no kidding. I installed debian when the potato was unstable, I had to install stable (which was really old by that time) since potato installer didn't work... I was quite confused by dselect and installation was quite, err... confused as well... I planned to make a fresh install, but got the disk that was too big at that time (for kernel used during installation etc.) and some other problems so I ended up copying the 'draft' installation and I am happily using it till now... it looks like it survived all the abuse so far since I do not see any unusual problems (it went from slinky to potato to woody (unstable) to sid (unstable) to woody (testing) to sid). I have to say it's quite impressive. judging by this discussion I guess that's normal for debian... now spill the beans: it's not really a joke, right? erik
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Brian Nelson wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Shepherd) writes: > > When Woody is released as 3.0 and becomes Stable do I just so a > > "apt-get dist-upgrade"? > > Yup. > > > Or do I need to do some kind of reinstall? > > Nope. > Some will argue that it is good to do a complete reinstall occasionally, atleast on major distribution upgrades, as a kind of periodic spring cleaning (ensuring old and no longer needed files and directory structures etc get purged from the system). Distributions like Mandrake and Redhat seem to imply this. Debian seems to prefer otherwise?
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
On 24-Oct-2001 Brian Nelson wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Shepherd) writes: > > Please wrap your lines at ~72 columns. > >> I haven't been using Debian long enough to experience a full new >> release. >> >> Currently I'm running 2.2r3 and my apt-sources point to 'stable'. >> >> When Woody is released as 3.0 and becomes Stable do I just so a >> "apt-get dist-upgrade"? > > Yup. > technically, apt-get upgrade will work. dist-upgrade has a few more rules in it to make large upgrades go smoothly. >> Or do I need to do some kind of reinstall? > > Nope. > There have been Debian machines that have been updated for 5 years. In fact the joke among us Debian developers is that our installer is so bad because most of us only see it once. >> It would be cool if apt could handle it all. >> >> Also what happens if I choose to stay with 2.2r3, do I change >> apt-sources to point to 'potato'? > yes. However we eventually move old releases to an archive and stop updating them. Once woody becomes stable potato will likely change very little if at all.
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
Hi, On 24 Oct 2001, Brian Nelson wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Shepherd) writes: > > > When Woody is released as 3.0 and becomes Stable do I just so a > > "apt-get dist-upgrade"? > > Yup. > Not: apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade ? Greetz, Sebastiaan
Re: What happens when Woody becomes Stable ??
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Shepherd) writes: Please wrap your lines at ~72 columns. > I haven't been using Debian long enough to experience a full new > release. > > Currently I'm running 2.2r3 and my apt-sources point to 'stable'. > > When Woody is released as 3.0 and becomes Stable do I just so a > "apt-get dist-upgrade"? Yup. > Or do I need to do some kind of reinstall? Nope. > It would be cool if apt could handle it all. > > Also what happens if I choose to stay with 2.2r3, do I change > apt-sources to point to 'potato'? Yup. -- Brian Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
