Re: Req. advice on upgrades: kernel, X, libc
> On Sunday 09 September 2001 09:03 pm, Scott Bigham wrote:
[ snip ]
> [...]
> > - XFree86: 3.3.6 -> 4.1.0
> >
> > My notebook is a Toshiba Portege 7020CT, which has a NeoMagic NM2200
> > video chip. The XFree86 site lists this chip as "Support
> > (accelerated)" in 4.1.0;[1] do I lose the acceleration if I use the
> > framebuffer?
If your kernel has framebuffer acceleration for your card type, no, but it
gets done differently... and may be worth comparing which is more efficient,
but my money is on X's native code.
> > There's also the question of the XF86Config changes; is there a
> > utility to convert an old 3.3.6 config file to the new syntax?
>
> The configuration files for X 4 is actually quite similar, and if anything,
> simpler. Just save your old one and compare them side by side, and it should
> be fine.
In particular save your modelines if you've tweaked them - your monitor has
not changed, your videocard's max dotclock has not changed, and the new X's
guesing mechanism for modelines is better, but not as good as hand tuning.
> > - libc6: 2.1.3 -> 2.2.3
> >
> > This is the one that's really got me worried. I mean, if this goes
> > wrong, it has the potential to break *everything*. Anything special
> > I need to do here?
With apt installed, and an otherwise unbroken Debian system, a libc upgrade
can be very smooth -
apt-get install libc6 locales libstdc++2.10 libc6-dev
When you do them all at once it does the right thing. For libc that
probably includes replacing ldso and timezones if you have them, the new
one provides those now.
> > And, coming full circle, if I do this upgrade before the kernel
> > upgrade, do I still need to use the "bunk" versions of the various
> > 2.4 utilities,[2] or can I just use the versions from testing?
>
> When I upgraded potato -> woody, the only glitch was some dependencies
> concerning perl 5.6, libc 2.2, and APT. It ended up that apt,(which uses
> perl) started barfing up on me because the old libc was still installed but
> perl had been upgraded first... It wasn't much of a problem, you just have to
> manually download 1 or 2 packages and dpkg install them if needed.
It turns out that you can upgrade APT last and things work fine.
Upgrade perl 2nd works. But *do* get it second... do not wait for another
one of the packages to call on it, or, if doing that makes you feel better,
then:
apt-get install alien
Its only other odd dependency is rpm, and the resulting program is VERY
handy anyway. if you don't already have it I recommend it. (converts
between .deb and other packging flavors)
You may or may not lose console-apt if you have it - the package system has
sometimes had 'deity' available to replace it, sometimes not, and I don't
know its current state.
Aptitude works fine though. And if you're desperate for console-apt I can
dpkg-repack it for you...
> --Brendan
* Heather Stern * star@ many places...
note: not NYC nor D.C. If you're there I hope you're well.
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