On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 05:18:45PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Does it help defining in /etc/hosts the http hosts of your sources.list ? > > I can try that, but I've never done that before.
well, try it, it is not difficoult. I am not assuring that this will solve the problem, I am saying that this is so easy that it is worth to try it. > > > > Moreover, what happened when in sources.list you used the ip in place of > > > > security.debian.org ? > > Using the backports IP worked for installing SpamAssassin, but it > doesn't work for security. Every time I ping security.debian.org I > get a different IP anyway, so I'm not sure of what to use. the ip I explicity indicated in two of may previous e-mails. There you find also the reason I used to chose that ip among the many that getent hosts security.debian.org returns. > I'm sure my restore did something bad, so let me describe > what I did: > > 1. I installed Etch 40r0 from June 2007 download (base system). > 2. I ran apt-get update and dist-upgrade - Worked fine! > 3. Then I installed Mondo, and used mondorestore to restore /etc, > /home, /usr, and /var from my mondo-created backup DVDs. I do not know/use/whatever mondo. I do not understand backup procedures like yours. In debian, it makes sense to backup: /etc/ (very important) /root/ /home/ /usr/local/ /var/lib/dpkg/ (very important) /var/cache/debconf/ (optional) other specifc directories from /var (for example the postgres/mysql/... directory if you use a database, but stop the database before doing the backup!) and then you do restores of _specific_ files when needed. If you really want to perform "complete" backups and restores, I think tha mondo has the ability to perform them without the need of a base installation on disk. Your method does a *mix* of a existing installation on disk with a previous backed-up installation. As you have experienced, not always a great thing. One thing that you could do (once apt works) is to reinstall every package on the system. dpkg --get-selections|grep [[:blank:]]install and you see the packages that dpkg thinks are installed (this idea might not be completely correct given the mix of installations that you performed). Then reisnstall all of them apt-get --reinstall install $(dpkg --get-selections|grep [[:blank:]]install|sed "s/[[:blank:]].*//") -- Chi usa software non libero avvelena anche te. Digli di smettere. Informatica=arsenico: minime dosi in rari casi patologici, altrimenti letale. Informatica=bomba: intelligente solo per gli stupidi che ci credono. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]