Jumping to Testing or Sid

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
kurotsugi

Re: Moving to Testing in LMDE

Post by kurotsugi »

there are similar report several days ago and OP said that it could be fixed by reinstalling cinnamon.
Suit

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by Suit »

Thank you. After reviewing the steps I forgot to the delete the preferences first. I will try it again possibly. Update Pack 7 still has not been released correct?
Suit

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by Suit »

ZeroZero,

I tried the steps again and received the same result.

I've attached two of the messages here:
The message just in case is:
Configuration file /etc/issue
Modified by you or by a script since installation.
Package distributor has shipped an updated version. Would like like to do about it? You options are:
Yes: Install the package maintainers version.

The first time I chose Y. Same issue. The second time I chose N. Same thing again. Each time I end up with a Cinnamon menu which turns into little squares.
Ideas?

Thanks!
zerozero

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by zerozero »

that message is unrelated with the issues you are reporting; in that particular situation you are just modifying config files (or not depending on the option you chose); that won't break cinnamon.

what would be interesting to see was the output of

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apt update && apt dist-upgrade   
but i'm afraid since last monday the weather is stormy to leave latest/incoming :mrgreen: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=132747&p=753080#p752564
fabiog

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by fabiog »

Hi guys,

what's the difference between running LMDE with the testing repos and running a Debian testing based distro like Sparkylinux or Crunchbang?

LMDE as-is is not really rolling: I'd define 'rolling' if there was at least an update pack every 3 months...

Thanks zerozero for your post. I followed and broke my system!! Yet sparkylinux is working fine... don't get it...

Look forward to be enlighted!
Fabio
zerozero

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by zerozero »

fabiog
SparkyLinux is a lightweight, fast and simple Linux distribution disigned for both old and new computers featuring customized Enlightenment and LXDE desktops.
lmde (specially if you have cinnamon) http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=132747&start=100#p752564
HTH
fabiog

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by fabiog »

Hi zerozero,

thanks, but I was more interested on how that works under the hood: if lmde and sparkylinux/#! are both pointing at the debian repos, what differentiates them, aside the graphical environment?

I'm maybe just confused on how distros are built: debian testing + some linuxmint stuff = lmde?? debian testing + some sparkylinux stuff = sparkylinux? I'm sure there's more to that...
zerozero

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by zerozero »

what is broken atm in lmde/testing is cinnamon; of course that is a lot because cinnamon/nemo are more than just the graphical environment, they are your DE.
(assuming that you followed the OP to the letter specially the part about the preferences file, apart from the cinnamon breakage there shouldn't be major problems)
Chris M

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by Chris M »

fabiog wrote:Hi zerozero,

thanks, but I was more interested on how that works under the hood: if lmde and sparkylinux/#! are both pointing at the debian repos, what differentiates them, aside the graphical environment?

I'm maybe just confused on how distros are built: debian testing + some linuxmint stuff = lmde?? debian testing + some sparkylinux stuff = sparkylinux? I'm sure there's more to that...
If this is a fundamental question about LMDE, you're correct that it's not rolling like pure Debian Testing. It used to, but a (long) while back, clem went with an Update Packs scheme. If you're "jumping to Testing or Sid" you're going to change your repositories to track pure Debian Testing or Sid. The Mint Update Packs (UP) become inconsequential once you change your repos - although you'll still want the latest Mint files at repo

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deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
If you're using a Mint disk, they don't start out pointing to Debian repos. LMDE is based on Debian, it doesn't start out pointing to Debian repos.

You'll also want to get rid of your pin priorities - or set them even.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade gets the job done, if the Mint ISO/disk is new.

If the disk is old-ish, sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade is better. That will catch you up to date and fix any broken packages/dependencies along the way.

This thread is really about abandoning the UP scheme, and rolling along with Debian Testing (or Sid). If I'm correct, there's only that 1 Mint repo that's maintained. Maintaining that 1 will keep you in the Mint game, while rolling along with Debian Testing or Sid. If you maintain the 1 Mint repo, you take on troubleshooting Mint and Debian for upcoming UP.

On Windows right now. Maybe zz can post his repos, and tell you which pin priority file to delete.

As an offhand comment, LMDE has never been about Sid, so if you want to give more to the LMDE project, you'll point to Debian Testing repos so as to troubleshoot for upcoming UP. Pointing to pure Sid is more for fun.
fabiog

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by fabiog »

Chris M wrote: If I'm correct, there's only that 1 Mint repo that's maintained. Maintaining that 1 will keep you in the Mint game, while rolling along with Debian Testing or Sid. .
Thanks Chris, that basically clears my doubts.. I'll give it another go at LMDE testing and see how that goes.
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Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by xfrank »

zerozero wrote:
if you need this howto to help you make the jump into testing or sid you should think twice because, probably, you are not prepared

general warnings:
  • if you leave the update-packs, cinnamon might (will) break one day
  • if you leave the update-packs nvidia and amd might break anytime
  • if you leave the update-packs you should update frequently (daily if possibly)

why should you do it
  • update-packs are boring stable
  • you want to learn more about your system and how linux works in general
  • you think it's fun spending time maintaining your system
  • you want the latest&greatest

why shouldn't you do it
  • update-packs are rock solid
  • you can't afford downtime / that is a production machine
  • you hate when something breaks

which one to pick: testing or sid?
  • sid is more interesting but a lot more dangerous: you have to realize that it can break badly in the next update
  • breakages and bugs are solved a lot faster in sid (sometimes in the same day) than in testing but are more frequent as well
After considering to follow debian testing, I think is better for me to stay with the standard update-packs model. I cannot afford to break my system or to spend days to fix something serious. I have to work with my PC. Update Packs are boring? ok, but they are safe. I just wish the update packs will be more frequent in the near future (adjusting to a real rolling scheme).
Active Distros in my computers: LM21.1 (Mate,Xfce); MXLinux (Xfce)
kurotsugi

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by kurotsugi »

having a small periodic update will better if you want a rolling scheme. I have daily update for more than a year and never got a package breakage. debian now also have 'always releaseable testing' policy. their testing stability is now on par with debian stable or even better. https://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/

it's getting bored to follow testing. now I'm following since last month
gtsfer

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by gtsfer »

zerozero wrote::lol: with that introduction?? i'm afraid "they" won't come even close :mrgreen:
I must be out of my mind for even reading this post, let alone bookmarking it. Especially with all this talk of "Dark Side". You're trolling for us crazy ones, aren't you?
zerozero

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by zerozero »

gtsfer wrote:You're trolling for us crazy ones, aren't you?
:mrgreen:
apemanx

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by apemanx »

A small question about all of this even though it's perhaps an older thread...

I started doing the Sid thing... I love the suspense after each upgrade of packages...

About the repos... If I just add the ftp:// .... unstable repo.. leaving the LMDE standard ones is it a big problem?

Should I ass the other two as well? So far everything seems stable after a dist-upgrade with just this repo added..

If there is a newer relevant thread please point me there?
py-thon

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by py-thon »

As LMDE will track stable in the future and I was already discontent with the lag of LMDE I consider to track testing (maybe even before the freeze). So some questions arose.

1. Changing /etc/apt/sources.list was a simple thing using a text editor. But now there is software-sources and /etc/apt/sources.list.d
How can I track testing with that? Is it safe to reduce official-package-repositories.list to one line (containing deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import) and add the three debian-testing-repos to additonal-repositories.list? Or will that cause chaos?

2. What are synaptic's preferences after deleting /etc/apt/preferences when packages exist in mint's as well as debian's repos? Or will both versions be shown?

3. Are there mint packages that should better be deactivated or deinstalled when tracking testing?

Edit to 2: My system doesn't have /etc/apt/preferences.d/official-package-repositories.pref as suggested in http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 40#p899127
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Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by Monsta »

py-thon wrote:How can I track testing with that?
Just don't run mintSources - it'll rewrite /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list with the default LMDE repos when you open the mirror selection dialog.
You can probably even remove this tool and install software-properties-gtk instead (but I didn't test that, so it may or may not work for you).
py-thon wrote:Is it safe to reduce official-package-repositories.list to one line
It's safe to do what you want or need in either /etc/apt/sources.list or in the *.list files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory. APT will read both places.
py-thon wrote:2. What are synaptic's preferences after deleting /etc/apt/preferences when packages exist in mint's as well as debian's repos? Or will both versions be shown?
I don't know why Synaptic is mentioned here, but after that file is removed, all the repos receive the same priority (500). You can check that by running apt policy (without any other parameters).
py-thon wrote:Are there mint packages that should better be deactivated or deinstalled when tracking testing?
You can check this thread to learn about that. One example I recall is mintSystem which causes boot issues when systemd is the default init system - but that can be easily fixed.
py-thon

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by py-thon »

Monsta wrote: APT will read both places.
That's what I wanted to know. So I can edit them with an editor and ignore software-sources.
Monsta wrote:
py-thon wrote:2. What are synaptic's preferences after deleting /etc/apt/preferences when packages exist in mint's as well as debian's repos? Or will both versions be shown?
I don't know why Synaptic is mentioned here, but after that file is removed, all the repos receive the same priority (500).
Right, I should have asked for APT's preferences instead of synaptic's.
This means that updating or upgrading automatically results in the higher version being installed instead of the one from repo with higher priority.
Monsta wrote: You can check this thread to learn about that. One example I recall is mintSystem which causes boot issues when systemd is the default init system - but that can be easily fixed.
Ok, so it's a lot of work to check all the details :) I had hoped there would be a list or summary someplace.

Thanks, I'm one step further.
Mauro

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by Mauro »

Hi! I get bored with LMDE UP so I'm moving to the dark side. Wish me luck! Thanks for the tutorial!

Edit 1:

Bad luck! I get some errors that don't allow me to move to testing :(

1) Duplicate entries. I did all what the tutorial said (delete the preferences file and edit de sources with the 4 lines in the post) but I get this when I type apt-get update:

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W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/upstream amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_upstream_binary-amd64_Packages)
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/import amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_import_binary-amd64_Packages)
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main i386 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_main_binary-i386_Packages)
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/upstream i386 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_upstream_binary-i386_Packages)
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/import i386 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_import_binary-i386_Packages)

2) Lot of dependencies Packages doenst work allthoug I use apt-get -f install or aptitude upgrade --full-resolver. I got 1673 updates :cry:

Is there a way to fix this? Thanks in advance
py-thon

Re: Jumping to Testing or Sid

Post by py-thon »

Mauro wrote:1) Duplicate entries. I did all what the tutorial said (delete the preferences file and edit de sources with the 4 lines in the post) but I get this when I type apt-get update:

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W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
Those lines are harmless. This only means that some repository is mentioned twice in /etc/apt/sources.list and/or the lists in /etc/apt/sources.list.d . Maybe you just added the four lines mentioned and packages.linuxmint.com already existed. Simply check them and delete the duplicate.
Mauro wrote:2) Lot of dependencies Packages doenst work allthoug I use apt-get -f install or aptitude upgrade --full-resolver. I got 1673 updates :cry:

Is there a way to fix this? Thanks in advance
I had the same problem when trying to track testing in September. MATE-dependencies where in a gridlock and could not be solved.
The 1673 updates is normal because LMDE is mostly about 10 months old and almost all of LMDE's packages have been updated by now.
In the end to me it seemed much simpler to do a fresh install than try to move my old install to testing.
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