[Sussex] The first of the Debian based confusion(s)

[Steve Dobson]

JOhn

On Sat, 2005-04-30 at 18:38 -0400, John D. wrote:
> Well, as you'll all note from the title, I've obviously managed to get 
> the knoppix installed to my HDD and have been digging round to try and 
> get it so that it will become "proper" Debian.

Congrats

> So, having tried to follow the instructions that Thomas posted, I've 
> tried to mod the apt-sources.list, without much luck.
> 
> I'm quite happy to dump the knoppix one, but what exactly do I need to 
> replace the info with. The knoppix one reflects german located testing 
> sources - which seem to be working fine(ish). I can't suss out whether I 
> just need to show it something like this?
>
> # Testing
> deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian testing main contrib non-free
> deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US testing/non-US main 
> contrib non-free
> 
> # Testing Sources
> #deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian testing main contrib non-free
> #deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US testing/non-US main 
> contrib non-free

There is no problem in using the German mirror.  It will contain the
same data as the UK one (only the US mirrors are different as they don't
contain packages that are known to be a problem legally in the US).

However, it is bad form not to use the UK mirrors, just change the "de"s
with "uk"s to change over to the UK mirrors.

To get the security updates (which are for stable (woody) not testing
(sarge) add the following line to apt-sources.list.

deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main

With the apt-source.list edited now run:

# apt-get update

You should run this command before you do any "apt install"s, "apt
upgrade"s or "apt dist-upgrade"s for that day (the mirrors are updated
daily).

Then to bring yourself up todate with Debian sarge run the command

# apt-get dist-upgrade

And go make yourself a cup of tea.

> or does it need to have a security source as well? or maybe is it just 
> like the top part i.e. just a deb listing, or does it need a deb-src 
> listing as well?

Security is only really need if your running stable, but I always
include it because I use the release name.

Unless you want to down load the sources of a package to compile locally
or to develop against then there is no need for any "deb-src" lines.
This only provide access to the sources that are used to build the
packages.

> do I need to have something for stable, unstable and testing to get the 
> testing? or just a testing listing ??

All debian releases are named (after Toy story characters).  The current
stable release is named "woody".  "sarge" is still being tested but will
be released shortly.  The unstable version is always called "sid" (the
boy next door which was always experimenting with this toys) - don't use
this unless you want the latest and gratest and don't mind that the
packages in that section maybe broken or to install correctly.  It is
for development, and you can play with it if you want.  Debian is done
completely in the open .

On the packages servers the "testing" "stable", and "unstable" are just
links to the approrate named release.  When a new release is ready all
the links are moved approprately, so if you use the link names when 
a new stable is released you will be automaticly upgraded to it.

But when a new release happens for a few months afterwards lots of new
versions of packages get uploaded by the developers, so testing can be a
little "unstable" for a while.  By using the release name you don't get
switched to the new testing branch but keep using the same, well tested
software.

> Could someone point me in the right direction please ???

I hope I have, but you can always ask me tomorrow - no a quick check of
the clock tells me it is now 00:02 so it must be today.

> p.s. Another anomally, is that "it" won't allow me to log in as root 
> graphically - I can su and su- but not graphically. Any ideas why or 
> where I'd look to change it ?

This is a good think.  It is not a good idea to log in graphically as
root, but if you really, really, want to there is a config option in the
KDE loggin tool to enable it.

Steve