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Debian 7.3 is out

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Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#41

Post by prg318 »

RexRollman wrote: post #32
guipsp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sometimes you need to dist-upgrade, even when not switching distros.

How would you know when?

Some packages will be held back by apt-get until you "dist-upgrade" them and apt-get will notify you of the held back packages when you apt get "upgrade".

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#42

Post by ars »

RexRollman wrote: post #32
guipsp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sometimes you need to dist-upgrade, even when not switching distros.

How would you know when?

If you get a lot of packages that it tries to uninstall. That's basically what dist-upgrade does: tries to uninstall the least number of packages to allow the update through.

It never happens with a point release though - they are careful about that.

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#43

Post by RexRollman »

squeezingswirls wrote: post #34
RexRollman wrote: post #31

I recently gave Debian a try and one thing that surprised me, coming from Arch, is that the tool to install software, apt-get, can't list what software has already been installed. You have to use dkpg to get that information. Even funnier, I found the answer for that on the Arch Wiki page on Pacmac Rosetta: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman_Rosetta

Better use aptitude instead of apt-get. If you want to know which packages are installed: aptitude search '~i' That command will list all your installed packages and the automagically installed ones will be marked with A.

Honestly, I find Aptitude hard to use. Maybe Pacman has spoiled me.

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#44

Post by mmgutz »

eyko wrote: post #26
throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try it on a VM like VirtualBox (free, OS X supported). Among the advantages, you get vastly superior hardware support, particularly with the trackpad. Source: Running Debian Wheezy on a 2011 Air. edit to add: Here's a quick list what running Debian on a VM gives you: * Seamless full-screen linux with full hardware access (e.g. GPU) * Advantage of native OS X drivers (particularly the amazing trackpad -- linux drivers…

However, performance is shite. I ended up going for a native install and you can appreciate the difference. That is, if you run Gnome 3 (which is a pile of shite as well). When on other DMs, if you can call xmonad a dm, virtual box was just awesome, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

Why would you use gnome if you've used xmonad :)I run crunchbang (debian w/ openbox) and it's awesome.

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#45

Post by arc_of_descent »

Since I do apt-get update && apt-get upgrade almost regularly, I found out that my system was already running 7.3 (cat /etc/debian_version). So yes, this is not a major upgrade release just that the Debian team thought that there were enough changes and bug fixes to label this as a new release.

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#47

Post by adamors »

RexRollman wrote: post #43
squeezingswirls wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better use aptitude instead of apt-get. If you want to know which packages are installed: aptitude search '~i' That command will list all your installed packages and the automagically installed ones will be marked with A.

Honestly, I find Aptitude hard to use. Maybe Pacman has spoiled me.

Yes, Pacman is actually quite easy to use and lacks a lot of historical inconstancies that make tools like apt hard(er).

When I first started using Arch (coming from 'buntu and Debian) I was surprised just how straightforward most of the flags were.

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#48

Post by chris_wot »

ars wrote: post #40
rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing special...except for the actual commands. Empathize with the newbie.

You are supposed to run those commands every day, not just with a point release. When the newbie installed debian in the first place they were (should have been) told to do that. (And yes there is a tool that will do it automatically and email you if there are updates - apticron.)

Isn't it:

  apt-get dist-upgrade
???

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#49

Post by drill_sarge »

plg wrote: post #13

Can anyone point me to a step by step for how to get debian running on a macbook air? I've googled it and tried at least 4 different approaches, to no avail. I'm talking about a macbookair3,1 (late 2010 11").

I'd recommend using Debian testing instead of stable for that. (testing is preferred in most personal use cases if you don't run in a corporate environment/server or similar)

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

I am not sure, but you may need the additional firmware files listed on that page.

Re: Debian 7.3 is out

#50

Post by ksdkkdddd »

asuffield wrote: post #10
bpeebles wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upgrading from any Debian 7 upgrade should just be: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade

You don't need that upgrade. The only difference between upgrade and dist-upgrade is that dist-upgrade can add and remove packages, while upgrade will decline to make any upgrades that would require this. As such, dist-upgrade is almost always the one you meant.

In my experience, there's value in doing a standard upgrade before a dist-upgrade. It seems to help to fully update the system doing "upgrade" before "doing the upgrade" (dist-upgrade) that will uninstall things... That said, it can obviously be a bit of a waste to upgrade everything like gnome just to uninstall it immediately... As such, I typically manually uninstall large tasks then upgrade then dist-upgrade and manually add the tasks back. In "theory" it should just be as you say - one big dist-upgrade - but I've yet to encounter an upgrade that didn't need special attention and I have learned that minimizing the installed base being upgraded is a good first step to a smooth transition.
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