linuxgeek: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: NEWBIE with first question UPDATE Pangolin to Quantal

--- In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, "highskywhy@..." <highskywhy@...> wrote:
>
> Sa Dez 29 16:27:21 2012
> Good evening
> Thank You for help.

[snip]

> General advice: ALWAYS make a backup of the file you are about to mess
> around with [I had to learn that the hard way for a few times x-(]
> A quick way to do that, make a copy of the file in the same directory
> and append it with a suffix of your liking:
> Example:
> # cp /etc/apt/sources.list{,-OLD}
> *
> Where can I find an introction about the directories
> so I can save them on a stick:
> gconf
> config
> fontconfig
> Adobe
> pki
> kde
> and so on.
> Maybe there is a homepage in the www
> where all this Linux directories are described.
>
I don't think there is one website to go to for information, you should visit GNOME's and KDE's pages for advice how to backup settings for example.

>
>
> This command creates a copy of the file and appends '-OLD' to the copy.
> So in case anything gets screwed up (network-interfaces, fstab, mtab,
> sources.list, you name it) you copy back the original.
>
> *
> Thank You.
>
> > I can't stand terminal editors so I grant the root user access to my X
> > session so I can use a sane GUI editor with this command:
> >
> > pfred1@buck:~$ xhost +local:root
> > *
> > OK
> >
[snip]

> What is the most easy way to update or upgrade Pangolin to Quantal using
> Xubuntu?

You would have to change 'Pangolin' to 'Quantal' in the file 'sources.list' and then do a 'apt-get dist-upgrade'.

Personally, I tried a dist-upgrade once on Ubuntu and once on Debian, and both ended up in a total mess, so I advise against doing such a thing. Rather do a clean fresh install, but that is based on my experience, so other people might say something different.

>
> > I like aptitude though, and use it often, for whatever that is worth.
> > In fact I just used aptitude to check the status of synaptic on this
> > system. I haven't used synaptic on this PC in so long I couldn't
> > remember if I had it installed, or not. Admittedly I am not too crazy
> > about aptitude's ncurses interface, but just to do a show, a search, or
> > install, I use aptitude all of the time.
>
> You know that you do not have to use ncurses interface of aptitude but
> may simply type commands as with apt-get like?
>
> aptitude install PACKAGE
> aptitude search PACKAGE
> aptitude update && aptitude upgrade
>
> I hope that makes things a little bit clearer,
> *
> I prefer to use the terminal like
> sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf
> sudo apt-get clean
> sudo apt-get update --fix-missing
>
> but maybe the GUI is more easy
>
>
>
> Should I do this
> sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/* -vf
> sudo apt-get clean
> sudo apt-get update --fix-missing
> aptitude install PACKAGE
> aptitude search PACKAGE
> aptitude update && aptitude upgrade
> ?

Please do not mix the commands 'apt-get' and 'aptitude'. They are two differnt tools to manage packages under Debian-based Linux distributions although very, very similiar. The point is that they both keep their own log file of what has been installed or removed and when trying to find out what has gone wrong during an update, it is a lot harder to sift through two log files instead of one. So either use exclusively 'apt-get' or 'aptitude', their syntax is quite similiar.

Pascal