[clug] Advice request on upgrade to Debian Squeeze - local mirrors?

[Scott Ferguson]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:58:25 +0000 (UTC) Felix Karpfen wrote:
>  
> I note that my recent purchase of the 8 DVDs of Squeeze supplies 29,000+ 
> packages. My previously purchased (3) Lenny DVDs made available 12,567 
> new packages; of these, I have currently installed 956 packages on my 
> computer.  
> 
> I have a gut feeling that the story will be similar after the upgrade to 
> Squeeze.  I also suspect that most of the installed/upgraded packages 
> will be on "Disk 1" of the 8 Squeeze disks.


:-)
You might even say it's designed that way - DVD 1 and 2 contain most of
Gnome and KDE, in that order. Last mirror upgrade was early this month.

> 
> While installing (and indexing) the contents of 8 DVDs has the 
> attractions of simplicity and foolproofness, I would welcome comments on 
> the alternative option of installing only "Disk 1" on my computer and 
> using a local Debian mirror to upgrade any installed packages that are 
> not supplied by "Disk 1".


Amongst other methods - just do a basic install (you don't say what the
intended purpose of the build is)
Presuming you wish only a desktop machine - and your choice of desktop
is kde:-

Boot from the first DVD (suggest you set BIOS to boot from your hard
drive first, use F8 or whatever to temporarily select the DVD as the boot)

Arrow down to "Help" at the first screen
enter "install desktop=kde" and hit Enter
follow through the install screens....
say "No" if asked if you have more CD/DVDs
add a mirror when asked - you'll see the physically nearest transact one
under Australian mirrors - though Optus or one of the others may suit
your download budget better.

> 
> If the latter is considered to be the preferable routine, I would also 
> welcome advice on which local mirror to add to my "apt/sources.list".  
> For the record, the only non-DVD entries in my present "apt/sources.list" 
> read:
> 
>> > deb http://security.debian.org/lenny/updates main contrib non-free
>> > deb http://www.fbreader.org/desktop/debian stable main
> All comments/advice will be gratefully received.
> 
> Felix Karpfen
> 
> -- Felix Karpfen Public Key 72FDF9DF (DH/DSA)

You should have more entries in /etc/apt/sources.list than that -
Squeeze will want security, volatile, main and contrib as a minimum
(also nonfree if you want)

I don't know about the second repository you've given.... I'd suggest a
parallel upgrade (especially if you use kde) if space allows *before*
committing to an upgrade. The usual suggestions regarding prior backups
including your current boot strategy :-)

Your nearest mirror is probably the transact one - there is actually a
package that will allow you to determine the best repository from a list
- determined by response times.

http://www.debian.org/mirror/list