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Thanks, Patrick, for turning me on to Kanotix. I just installed the new release on a test machine.

You mentioned you are disappointed that it did not have KDE 3.5. Can I safely update to the new version through apt-get and Debian repositories? If so, how?

Firefox 3.5 is another major program I'd like to upgrade on another machine. What are the normal delays for when something makes it to sid and then testing? (If there is such a thing as normal.)

Is apt-get the only way to find out when an upgrade is added to the repositories? Is there any other way to be notified?

Thanks again,

Steve

steve riley wrote: You mentioned you are disappointed that it did not have KDE 3.5. Can I safely update to the new version through apt-get and Debian repositories? If so, how?

You should be able to do a regular dist-upgrade:
# apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

steve riley wrote: Firefox 3.5 is another major program I'd like to upgrade on another machine. What are the normal delays for when something makes it to sid and then testing? (If there is such a thing as normal.)

The latest release of firefox is 1.5. Each distro is different and you have to wait for the package maintainer to add the new package to their repository. You can always compile your own if you don't feel like waiting. It's not that hard to do.

steve riley wrote: Is apt-get the only way to find out when an upgrade is added to the repositories? Is there any other way to be notified?

'apt-cache show packagename' will come come back with the current package available.

Honestly I'm a little tired of the breakages in the debian sid repositories. I've started to migrate over to Arch Linux. My laptop is running it and I plan on switching my main workstation over to it. Don't get me wrong Kanotix is a real nice distro. It compares well with Ubuntu, Mepis or Suse. Arch is more suited to where I'm at right now. It's not for everyone though.

If you want to run KDE 3.5, and the absolute latest applications I think you should go with what Pat said, and install Arch. If you want to use Debian and apt-get I'd recommend installing testing from the net install disc instead of Kanotix. Testing isn't that far behind SID, and you get a more reliable system that's not so prone to breakage. You can't go wrong with either IMO, just depends on how bleeding edge you want to be, and which packaging system you prefer.

Is apt-get the only way to find out when an upgrade is added to the repositories? Is there any other way to be notified?

Synaptic is your friend.

Wally Balljacker wrote:If you want to use Debian and apt-get I'd recommend installing testing from the net install disc instead of Kanotix. Testing isn't that far behind SID, and you get a more reliable system that's not so prone to breakage.

Speaking of Debian "testing", how do you actually get that? I havn't been able to find an installation disc for it, I know it's not a "release", but how else would you get it by not just installing Sarge, editing the sources.list and doing an apt-get dist-upgrade command.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote:If you want to use Debian and apt-get I'd recommend installing testing from the net install disc instead of Kanotix. Testing isn't that far behind SID, and you get a more reliable system that's not so prone to breakage.

Speaking of Debian "testing", how do you actually get that? I havn't been able to find an installation disc for it, I know it's not a "release", but how else would you get it by not just installing Sarge, editing the sources.list and doing an apt-get dist-upgrade command.

You can download the testing installation disc(s), or upgrade from Sarge.

http://www.us.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

Wally Balljacker wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote:If you want to use Debian and apt-get I'd recommend installing testing from the net install disc instead of Kanotix. Testing isn't that far behind SID, and you get a more reliable system that's not so prone to breakage.

Speaking of Debian "testing", how do you actually get that? I havn't been able to find an installation disc for it, I know it's not a "release", but how else would you get it by not just installing Sarge, editing the sources.list and doing an apt-get dist-upgrade command.

You can download the testing installation disc(s), or upgrade from Sarge.

http://www.us.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

I might just have to try this out, do ya have any idea of when KDE 3.5 will enter the testing repository?

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote: Speaking of Debian "testing", how do you actually get that? I havn't been able to find an installation disc for it, I know it's not a "release", but how else would you get it by not just installing Sarge, editing the sources.list and doing an apt-get dist-upgrade command.

You can download the testing installation disc(s), or upgrade from Sarge.

http://www.us.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

I might just have to try this out, do ya have any idea of when KDE 3.5 will enter the testing repository?

It hasn't been in unstable that long, so I'm guessing atleast a couple months before it makes its way into testing.

Wally Balljacker wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote: You can download the testing installation disc(s), or upgrade from Sarge.

http://www.us.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

I might just have to try this out, do ya have any idea of when KDE 3.5 will enter the testing repository?

It hasn't been in unstable that long, so I'm guessing atleast a couple months before it makes its way into testing.

Okay sounds like something worth checking out by then, and oh by the way, what is Debian's stands on ATi and NVIDIA's proprietary drivers? If future versions of KDE will be depending on XGL to use OpenGL 3D acceleration to draw stuff, how can you do that without using NVIDIA's proprietary driver, or the not that efficient ATi open source driver?

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote: I might just have to try this out, do ya have any idea of when KDE 3.5 will enter the testing repository?

It hasn't been in unstable that long, so I'm guessing atleast a couple months before it makes its way into testing.

Okay sounds like something worth checking out by then, and oh by the way, what is Debian's stands on ATi and NVIDIA's proprietary drivers? If future versions of KDE will be depending on XGL to use OpenGL 3D acceleration to draw stuff, how can you do that without using NVIDIA's proprietary driver, or the not that efficient ATi open source driver?

Debian has the NVIDIA driver in the non-free section, along with some other NVIDIA utilities as well. You could also just install the binary from NVIDIA's website. That's what I do, since the testing package is usually a version or two behind. I don't believe Debian offers any ATi drivers. You could just download the binary from ATi's website, and install that.

Wally Balljacker wrote:You can download the testing installation disc(s), or upgrade from Sarge.

http://www.us.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

I cannot upgrade from sarge. I've tried twice in two weeks, and it keeps barfing on xlib deps. I'm going to DL the testing iso and give that a whirl.

The Etch installer works great. Etch itself strikes out big time though - most of the KDE apps I use daily aren't available - they've all been removed due to a problem with packages in sid. Strangely enough, amarok, at least, is available in sarge.