Upgrading

[Master of Reality]

I'm running Debian Stable (etch), but want to upgrade to testing (Lenny).
Is there a way to (and is it wise to) keep the kernel from upgrading, but upgrade everything else that can be.

I don't want to recompile all the kernel modules that i have installed and all that jazz.

[Void Main]

I don't have a Debian system at my fingertips at that moment but on apt for RPM (which comes from Debian) I have a line in my RPM section of my /etc/apt/apt.conf that looks like this:

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    Hold { "^kernel"; };


Basically this prevents any package starting with the name "kernel" to be upgraded on an upgrade/dist-upgrade.

Additionally there is this line:

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    Allow-Duplicated { "^kernel$"; "^kernel-"; "^gpg-pubkey$" };


This means you can install more than one version of these packages with an "apt-get install". I would look around for apt.conf configuration examples for Debian.

[Ice9]

If you use synaptic you can lock packages (package/lock version) which is what I use to keep xorg from updating all the time and having to reinstall my nvidia drivers every two days.
You could lock your kernel version the very same way, but you would have to make sure the linux-image-2.6.686 metapackage isn't installed otherwise apt-get is going to update your kernel anyway unless the version number changes.

What I find strange is that I can't find any apt.conf file anymore on my system, I have a /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/debconf file though but there's nothing in there that indicates that all my x-server packages are version-locked.

[Master of Reality]

i used synaptic to lock them, but i must have missed something, because it upgraded them anyway.

Do you have a preferences.conf file? I read that its where the locks are held, but i dont have that file, i've just got an apt.conf

[insomnia]

Why would you want that?

A basic debian etch kernel will boot testing, but not without any trouble (most of the prebuild modules in etch will indeed stop working in lenny) .
If you don't like the kernel used in testing, you're IMHO much better of building your own (it's not that difficult).

Easy solution: use the lenny kernel with module-assistent.

[Ice9]

i used synaptic to lock them, but i must have missed something, because it upgraded them anyway

You probably still have the linux-image meta-package installed and the default behavior with debian is upgrading the kernel as long as the version number doesn't change.
If I recall correctly this isn't the way it's done with FC - but my Red Hat/FC days seem like pretty distant memories these days

Do you have a preferences.conf file?

Yes I have one actually, but not in /etc/apt, it's stored in /var/lib/synaptic and it effectively contains info about all the version-locked packages.

[Master of Reality]

I was worried that i would have to compile bsd compression module myself afterward for pppd, but i guess it was included in the new kernel because pppd still works with my school's VPN.

Also i had to recompile ndiswrapper and vmware. I realized that it did not upgrade the kernel headers package, so i ended up sneaking into a computer lab and plugging in to my schools LAN (laptops are only supposed to use wireless network) to download it.

But i got everything to work now, and Lenny seems stable enough for me to use.