How to upgrade to Debian sid from a Ubuntu jaunty on top

How to upgrade to Debian sid from a Ubuntu jaunty on top

I'm trying to migrate from Ubuntu jaunty to Debian sid in order to avoid changing the port every 6 months on Ubuntu. I'm planning to replace the ubuntu respo by the Debian one in /etc/apt/source.list and do an apt-get upgrade (or probably dist-upgrade?). But I'm not sure this will actually work. Does anybody has such experience? I've googled, but it seems that most ppl talk about how to do the reverse...

Asked by: Guest | Views: 358

Total answers/comments: 2

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Guest [Entry]

"I tend to agree with the answer to your linked question. It's not that it's the only way that works; it's that it's the only way that guarantees a clean installation. If you attempt an apt-get dist-upgrade you might end up with inconsistencies in your system, where some of the old Ubuntu packages are left over and conflicting with the newer Debian packages.

I ended up following these Debian Bootstrap instructions when I did an Ubuntu -> Debian migration a couple of weeks ago on a home server. The process allows you to install Debian from a running Linux system, which worked for me because a) I was installing Debian to a separate hard drive, b) I wanted to perform most of the installation steps via SSH, and c) I'm crazy enough to try it. I'm still tweaking the result, and wrestling Grub into shape post-install has been a mess (especially since I have to move the keyboard over from the workstation anytime a boot goes wrong).

Bootstrapping is something of an intricate process, and if you're not experienced with Linux it's not something I'd recommend. But it's a good learning process if you're up for it."

Guest [Entry]

"I tried 'Live Migration' switch From Ubuntu LTS to Debian 7 back when Debian 7 first came out. (I backed up my partitions first) The switch didn't go so well. The furthest I got after like a few attempts (by the way this was just for fun) was for it to boot into (mostly) Debian and give me a tty. Even though this switch failed, it might be possible for those that know a lot about the Linux packages on both distros, and a switch was made to a distro with newer packages. A lot of websites say you can't switch this way, and I don't think most people would want to do this, and it doesn't sound like you are familiar enough. (I think most aren't)

[back up partitions first!!!] It's a lot easier to set up a partition for 'home', and then format the old 'non-home' Linux partition(s) and start installing the new distro in this space.

Debian has a 'stable' version(currently called 'Wheezy/7.6' as of this post), and Ubuntu has 'LTS' version(currently called 'Trusty Tahr/14.04.1' as of this post), which is good for like 2 years. Perhaps you should try one of those. Instead of Debian 'sid' (which is also called ""unstable""), or Ubuntu's 6 month non-LTS version.

[ops... didn't realize this thread was old when I posted this]"