Re: [Sheflug] Debian -- Upgrade Etch => Lenny

[Chris Butler <chrisb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

*dons Debian hat*

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 08:04:54AM +0100, Chris J wrote:
> I've not used Debian before[1] -- most of my Linux life has been spent with
> Slackware or various versions of BSD. Thus Debian's a slightly new beast.
> So excuse the newbie-type question, but things don't seem to be quite right
> with it.
> 
> I'm trying to upgrade Etch to Lenny and, from what I've read, it's simply a
> case of changing /etc/apt/source.list to replace instances of 'etch' with
> instances of 'lenny', and then issuing:
> 	apt-get update
> 	apt-get dist-upgrade
> 
> Except it isn't working. apt-get update completed without error, but
> apt-get dist-upgrade is issuing the following:
> 
> 	[trim lots of packages in a big list]
> 	616 upgraded, 289 newly installed, 31 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
> 	E: The package index files are corrupted. No Filename: field for package
> gcc-4.3-base.

I did find a thread on debian-user[0] that mentioned this error, although it
didn't seem to get anywhere. Have you tried running 'apt-get update' again
to refresh the package index files? Otherwise, the output of: 
  
  grep -A15 '^Package: gcc-4.3-base' /var/lib/apt/lists/*

could be useful.

I'm not sure if it's relevant to this case, but we normally recommend in the
release notes that you should upgrade the packaging tools manually first
before running dist-upgrade, i.e.

    # apt-get install dpkg apt

You may find that helps, the new apt may just have fixed the bug.

*removes Debian hat*

[0] http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Debian/2008-02/msg02848.html
-- 
Chris Butler <chrisb@xxxxxxxxxx>
  GnuPG Key ID: 1024D/D097A261

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