Sid -> Sarge

djib · 01-13-2005, 10:14 AM

Hello !
I'm trying to move from sid to sarge. I don't know if it is possible !
I have change the sources in /etc/apt/sources.list so that I have the sarge ones. Then I did apt-get update. After that if I do either apt-get upgrade or apt-get dist-upgrade then nothing happends...
Is that the way to go back to Sarge ?
Thanks.

redgren · 01-13-2005, 10:19 AM

Paste the contents of your sources.list here.

djib · 01-13-2005, 10:49 AM

Here they are :

Code:

deb http://debian/debian sarge main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian sarge main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sarge/non-US main contrib non-free
deb-src http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US sarge/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main contrib non-free

m_yates · 01-13-2005, 11:27 AM

You will have to set /etc/apt/preferences to downgrade packages to older testing versions from the newer unstable ones. The downgrading can cause problems though. If you want to risk it, you should give testing versions of packages a priority greater than 1000 so they are downgraded. You can make a /etc/apt/preferences file like:

Code:

X-comment: Force downgrade to testing.
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 1100

The upon running

Code:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

the testing version of all packages will be installed, even if it means downgrading. Not sure what errors you will have after that though. If you try it, please post the results. I am curious to see how smoothly it goes.

djib · 01-13-2005, 01:10 PM

Spooky ! But I will try ! Maybe this week end, I don't have time now (this is if I have to fix up things...)

m_yates · 01-13-2005, 02:56 PM

It probably won't be that much of a concern. I think problems may arise when newer versions use different configuration files than the old ones. However, you should be able to fix that by purging the configuration files, then reinstalling. I think if a package causes a problem, you can do:

Code:

apt-get --purge remove <package>
apt-get install package

and it should fix it. Good luck!

djib · 01-14-2005, 05:18 AM

I have done what you said m_yates... I had no problems, it did downgrade all the packages and now everything seems to work ok...
I let you know if things go wrong !

djib · 02-03-2005, 08:15 AM

Well, everything still works all right.
I had to reinstall some packages because they were acting stangely, but no major problem.
Thanks for your help !

R00ts · 04-23-2005, 05:41 PM

I am doing this right now. At first I just wanted a couple updates from sid that I didn't want to wait for in sarge. Then seeing how wonderful it was to have very up-to-date packages and hearing that others ran sid fine most of the time I got spoiled, and upgraded everything in my system. That was the wrong decision for me to make.

It somehow messed up my graphics library and a part of the video engine in the game I'm developing in my sig was seg faulting, but there was absolutely no reason it should have done so because the particular routine it happened on worked for everyone else and had been stable and untouched for over 2 months. Then suddenly today after upgrading some video codec all the sudden none of my GUI apps started up ok, but they were invisible, as if they weren't even there. I knew they were though, because I saw the open processes.

So I'll just have to wait and see what happends now, but I hope hope hope that going back to sarge fixes everything, and then I can start seriously working on my game again. I shall post back upon success/failure/death.

EDIT

Well nothing is broken, but nothing that was broken in sid is fixed either.