After more than a year of using Debian GNU/Linux stable (Lenny) on my eee, I decided to upgrade it to testing (Squeeze). The reasons are many. Some of them, are the access to updated versions of many applications, and the usage of a recent optimized kernel. Anyway, my system is fine except from a (pretty annoying) bug with gnome-panel when minimizing applications (they are gone instead of iconified), which seems to be a known issue but I still have not found a good solution[1]
If you are planning to do the same, the following advices might be helpful:
Have fun with Debian!
[1] The problem was solved by simply reinstalling GNOME :)
- Make sure that you have enough space on all partitions. In my case, during the installation my root partition became full, which terminated the process. An easy way to free space on the root partition (I'm talking about using a separate root partition here) is to remove outdated kernels and modules (if you don't use a separate boot partition). Don't do this manually, use
aptitude search linux-imageandaptitude purgeinstead. Other than that,du --human-readable --summarize [directories/files] | sort --reverse --numeric-sortwill be your friend :) - Be aware of the udev bug. There is a lot of discussion on the Web, but the best solution I've found is on the Debian forum.
- Use
aptitudeinstead ofapt-get. The steps are very straightforward: - Replace all the lines in
/etc/apt/sources.listfrom lenny to squeeze (or stable to testing, etc.) except from the security repository. The reason is that security updates are provided faster for the stable distribution, and it is fine to keep this line as is (no conflicts). sudo aptitude updatesudo aptitude install apt dpkg aptitudesudo aptitude safe-upgrade. Warning: This can last for some hours so get a book or go out for a coffee...- Reboot to make sure that the new kernel is used.
sudo aptitude full-upgrade. Although not necessary, I advice you to switch into single user mode withsudo telinit 1before executing this step.
Have fun with Debian!