On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 8:07 PM, John Hasler <jhas...@debian.org> wrote:
> B. Alexander wrote: > > I've got an issue with a sid box that I have been maintaining for a > > while. This is my workstation, and I have noticed a growing number of > > broken packages, unmet dependencies and conflicts. I have been using > > safe-upgrade for months now, hoping that it would work itself out over > > time. However, this hasn't happened. > > No, of course not. Sid is constantly undergoing the sort of changes > that take place when you upgrade from one release to the next and which > full-upgrade is designed to handle (and which safe-upgrade blocks): > transitions, removal of obsolete packages, major version changes that > require new library versions that may be incompatible with other > packages, etc. Sid is often also in an inconsistent state when, for > example, a package is uploaded in advance of its dependencies. By > repeatedly running safe-upgrade you have forced these things to pile > up. > > > So what can I do to fix the problems without losing functionality? > > "aptitude full-upgrade" and then patiently sort through the resulting > mess. It might be simplest to write down all the proposed removals, let > it do its thing, and then install the removed packages. > Yes. I need to block out some time and do just this. > > No problem. Most of my Debian installs at home run sid, with the rest > > running testing...Except my firewall, which runs stable for the first > > 6 months or so (until critical packages start getting long in the > > tooth), then I upgrade it to testing and run until the next stable > > release. > > I'm having trouble imagining what packages appropriate to a firewall > could get long in the tooth. > ssh, ssl, iptables, snort, etc. I don't have an extensively large package list on my firewall, especially compared to a workstation, but since it is on the sharp end of my network, I try to keep it as up to date as is feasable. --b
