Re: [TCLUG:16986] upgrading Debian

[Tim Neu <tim@tneu.visi.com>]

On Mon, 1 May 2000, Timothy Wilson wrote:

> Hey everyone,
> 
> OK, so I got Debian installed. It's not really very hard. I must say,
> however, that dselect has got to be one of the ugliest programs I've seen
> lately. Powerful? Yes. Cool? Yes. Intuitive? Yeah right.
> 
> Now that I've got a working Debian system, I'd like to upgrade to the latest
> unstable (woody) binaries. Am I correct in assuming that I can simply change
> /etc/apt/sources.list to refer to 'unstable' instead of 'stable'? Presumably
> I would then re-run dselect to download and install all of the packages.
> Correct?
> 
> I would encourage other to give Debian a try. The package management is
> truly impressive. Obtuse as it is, dselect is an amazing tool.

Don't put yourself through such agony!  Use apt-get instead:

apt-get install foo #downloads and installs a package and it's dependancies
apt-get update  # Updates the list of packages from the internet. 
apt-get dist-upgrade # Upgrades all install packages
apt-get remove foo # remove a package. 

Dselect is terrible.   I have never met a Debian fan who liked it.  
The automatic-update feature of dselect is cool, but that is what apt-get
is for!  :-)  

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
______         _ __         "If you don't have the freedom to use what you
  /           ' )  )               own - then you do not own anything."    
 / o ______    /  / _  . .    No apologies to Jack Valenti or the MPAA
/ <_/ / / <   /  (_</_(_/_  -- tneu@visi.com / http://www.visi.com/~tneu --