On Wednesday 14 February 2007 17:36, Michael S. Peek wrote: > Hi Debian gurus, > > I jumped aboard the Debian bandwagon mid-Sarge, and so that's the > version of Debian that our machines are currently running. As Etch > nears it's completion I've been preparing for the upgrade from Sarge to > Etch. Since I'm still pretty new to Debian, I'm a little iffy when it > comes to understanding parts of the the Sarge=stable, Etch=testing, > Sid=unstable implementation behind Debian development. Specifically, > I've seen several warnings now about making sure to change "testing" to > "etch" in /etc/apt/sources.lst once Etch goes stable. (For testing > purposes I've just always left it "etch".) But what if what I want is > to keep our machines at "testing"? It seems to have the latest and > grooviest versions of stuff. So how badly would I be shooting myself in > the foot if I changed "etch" to "testing" in /etc/apt/sources.lst and > just left it that way? > > Michael
Personally, if you have sufficient harddrive space, I'd keep your current Etch install pointing to Etch in /etc/apt/sources.list. then I would install another instance of Etch. I'd keep this pointing to Etch, then when Etch goes stable I'd point /etc/apt/sources.list for your new Etch install to the testing repo. this way you have one install which you know works ok, and the new Etch, now testing/Lenny install. I've had no real problems with my Etch/upgraded from Sarge install. From time to time some packages have been removed when doing an apt-get dist-upgrade. I lost Rosegarden4 for about 6 weeks, then it came back as available. If you have the harddrive space, doing it this way, at least you have a distro you know works, and your new install of Etch that you have pointed to the testing repo can be viewed as a bit experimental. This way, if for some reason Lenny goes seriously pearshaped, you can boot into your stable Etch. As I say, I've had no serious problems, apart from losing some packages for a while. my 2ยข worth Nigel.
