Andrei Popescu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > 2. change your sources.list to point to debian testing and do a > dist-upgrade. GOOD LUCK!!! ... > The second method is VERY error prone. You might get into dependency > hell, config hell, ... and this (should at least) replaces all > Ubuntu packages with their debian versions. So not very far from a > reinstall either.
I've done this, and it actually went much more smoothly than that. _However_ to deal with the few exceptions that may arise, you should know how to use apt-get to work around dependency problems (using aptitude helps because it can suggest possible solutions). In my case, there were only a few problematic packages, in particular, ubuntu's different package organization for python and x (window system). I eventually got around the latter problem by downgrading to xfree86 in testing then upgrading back up to xorg after I was safely in debian-land; however this is the sort of thing a novice probably wouldn't know to try, and of course downgrading is always potentially dangerous. [The alternative would be to simply uninstall x and later re-install it, but this would cause many other GUI type packages to be uninstalled, so one would need to keep a list of things to re-install afterwards.] Other than those things, basically everything just worked. I didn't need to do any "manual hacking" of anything, just futzing around with apt-get (well, actually aptitude, which makes things nicer). It was certainly far, _far_, ___FAR___, less annoying than a re-install. For anybody that is facile with apt-get/aptitude, I'd certainly recommend the "upgrade away" route over a re-install. I think the particular problems I encountered may be less of an issue these days, because debian seems to have moved towards a packaging of python and x that is more similar to ubuntu's. One thing I realized after all that, btw, is that the difference between debian and ubuntu is a lot smaller than people often seem to think. -Miles -- "Though they may have different meanings, the cries of 'Yeeeee-haw!' and 'Allahu akbar!' are, in spirit, not actually all that different." -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
