I am upgrading from potato to woody (in anticipation of sarge), having just upgraded my potato packages with the Debian potato archives, and with the potato security archives. I run dselect with the "apt" access method, I update the list of packages, and now I am in dselect's "2. [S]elect" I make no changes/selections, merely pressing "enter". Dselect recommends removing or purging 1258 packages of 1459 installed packages, including numerous required packages like base-files base-passwd bash bsdutils debianutils dpkg fileutils libc6
Entering dselect's
2. [S]elect Request which packages you want on your system
and immediately pressing "enter",
or later after entering "U" (set all to sUggested state),
I see the following first three lines for conflict resolution,
lines which BAFFLE ME,
**- Req base base-files Debian base system miscellaneous files
**- Req base base-passwd Debian Base System Password/Group Files
**- Req base bash The GNU Bourne Again SHell
or, in verbose mode I see [excluding "Description"],
Installed Old mark Marked for Priority Section Package
--------- -------- ---------- ---------------- -------
installed install remove Required base base-files
installed install remove Required base base-passwd
installed install remove Required base bash
Clicking "R" (Revert to state before this list), I see the expected,
*** Req base base-files Debian base system miscellaneous files
*** Req base base-passwd Debian Base System Password/Group Files
*** Req base bash The GNU Bourne Again SHell
Following are the first few lines when I first enter dselect's
"2. [S]elect", as expected,
q All packages q
qqq Updated packages (newer version is available) qqq
qqqqq Updated Required packages qqqqq
qqqqqqq Updated Required packages in section base qqqqqqq
*** Req base base-files 2.2.0 3.0.2
*** Req base base-passwd 3.1.10 3.4.1
*** Req base bash 2.03-6 2.05a-11
Following are corresponding lines from "dpkg -l", as expected,
ii base-files 2.2.0 Debian base system miscellaneous files
ii base-passwd 3.1.10 Debian Base System Password/Group Files
ii bash 2.03-6 The GNU Bourne Again SHell
The Release Notes for Woody,
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html
said
"The recommended method of upgrading is to use the apt method
with dselect"
Can anyone clarify why "dselect" recommends obliterating required packages?
Two years ago, I upgraded other computers from potato to woody
using instead apt-get.
Then, with "apt-get dist-upgrade", I remember spending a couple
days fumbling through upgrade problems,
so I presume the Release Notes correctly recommend using "dselect".
My current potato distribution has the following package versions,
libc6 2.1.3-25
bash 2.03-6
perl-5.005 5.005.03-7.2
perl-base 5.004.05-1.1
debconf 0.2.80.17
dpkg 1.6.15
libncurses5 5.0-6.0potato2
libstdc++2.10 2.95.2-13.1
I have used Debian Linux since 1995, so I'm fairly well versed as a user
in dselect, dpkg, and apt-get, but I am in "Potato Hole"
with these "dselect" recommendations.
Should no one respond, I will return to using apt-get.
--
Jameson C. Burt, NJ9L Fairfax, Virginia, USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.coost.com
(202) 690-0380 (work)
LTSP.org: magic "mysterious and awe-inspiring even though
we know they are real and not supernatural"
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
