[Sussex] Debian Lug - the one with the text

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff / Garth / Jon
You guys need to get a life and not sit there waiting for the next 
posting to the SLUG list - esp when all that I did was hit the
right key at the wrong time.

I just wanted to say a few things about Debian and using "apt".

If you are using Debian then you should really be running, at least,
the latest "stable" release. It is support by the security team,
older releases are dropped after a while.  If you don't keep up to
date with security patches then you system is more susceptible to 
attack.  Very important if your machine is connected to the Internet,
and very important if it is permanently connected via one of the
new broadband connections.

If you are running "stable" then this line
   deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free
needs to be in your /etc/apt/sources.list file so that you do get the
latest patches to your system from the Debian security team.

This must be done regardless of where you're getting your stable 
packages from.  CDs go out of data very quickly.

If your running "testing" or "sid" then you do not need the security
line as it is the responsibility of the package maintainer to post updates
to his/her package.

Once /etc/apt/sources.list if configured you should use the command
  # apt-get update
to get the package lists.  This should become a habit before using
any of the other apt-get commands (except apt-get remove - but make it
a habit even there - better to be safe than sorry).

To update your system to the latest version of all packages currently
use the command
  # apt-get dist-upgrade
This will also add in any new packages needed that packages you are
using may need.  If you just use "apt-get upgrade" then any package
that you are using that depends upon a package not installed will
be kept back.

To install new packages (or to upgrade kept back packages) you use
the 
  # apt-get install <package-name>
to install.  If the package requested depends upon packages not yet
installed they will be listed and a prompt to continue made.

Steve D