There are a few differences like the default syslog daemon is now rsyslog instead of the old syslogd. That won't auto-change if you upgrade. Other than that (and a few more things specified in the release notes) upgrading is as good as a fresh install.

I'm also looking forward for lenny! Come on Caker! Make us happy!

I installed a lamp system on an old Via m1000 box with limited resources last night. I used the netinstall. It took about an hour and a half. The new grapical installer was easy and flawless. I'm using it now to surf the web.

The only thing I miss in this new version is Gimp 2.6. It has been available in Fedora 10 and ubuntu 8.10 for quite some time.

All in all the quality is very good, typical of Debian,

I would also like to have it available here at Linode.

Jeff

@jcc972:

I'm also looking forward for lenny! Come on Caker! Make us happy!

I'm still waiting for Slackware-12.1!

Is it safe to do a dist-upgrade? I've never done one on a VPS before.

It's safe enough. You may want to do it in chunks, depending on how big your root or /var partition is. Also, you'll probably run into the I/O limiter, so the unpacking and setup process seems to stall periodically. But it works, in the end.

@patrick:

Is it safe to do a dist-upgrade? I've never done one on a VPS before.

Hi,

I performed a standard dist-upgrade from Debian 4 (etch/oldstable) to Debian 5 (lenny/stable) this morning (it's 05:00 here) and it all worked fine without any problems.

The actual package download && installation took less than 5 minutes on my linode 360.

One thing that I noted is that the /etc/securetty file that comes with the Linode Debian image has been modified (presumably to work with LiSH) so remember to keep the original file when the installer asks you to!

Obviously before you try any of this I suggest you backup all your files and settings, or duplicate your entire disk image if possible!

Note: I did not upgrade the linode kernel, my linode is still using "Latest 2.6" (2.6.18.8-linode16) without issue

Hope this helps :)

Yeah, I went ahead and did it earlier today.

I let it copy over /etc/securetty. What have I done?!

@patrick:

I let it copy over /etc/securetty. What have I done?! I guess you won't connect to console as root (su will still work though).

My /etc/securetty (Gentoo but it doesn't make much difference):

# /etc/securetty: list of terminals on which root is allowed to login.
# See securetty(5) and login(1).

hvc0

More important is /etc/inittab, in which there has to be reference to hvc0 or you won't get console prompt … more on this subject: https://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic … 7324#17324">https://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=17324#17324

@SteveG:

Also, you'll probably run into the I/O limiter, so the unpacking and setup process seems to stall periodically.

Which only applies to UML Linodes.

@tasaro:

@SteveG:

Also, you'll probably run into the I/O limiter, so the unpacking and setup process seems to stall periodically.

Which only applies to UML Linodes.

Then why are upgrades stalling so badly on my Xen linode? I'm not swappping (according to vmstat), but upgrades are noticiably slower on Xen than they were on UML. Typically I'm seeing CPU split evenly between Sys and IOWait, very little User.

Surely Xen must be doing some liimiting of IO, for fairness.

@drake127:

@patrick:

I let it copy over /etc/securetty. What have I done?! I guess you won't connect to console as root (su will still work though).

FWIW, here's the diff that the installer supplies:

*** securetty (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? D

–- /etc/securetty 2005-06-07 02:07:55.000000000 -0400

+++ /etc/securetty.dpkg-new 2008-11-22 11:00:58.000000000 -0500

@@ -2,14 +2,34 @@

See securetty(5) and login(1).

console

-# for people with serial port consoles

+# Standard serial ports

ttyS0

+ttyS1

-# for devfs

-tts/0

+# USB dongles

+ttyUSB0

+ttyUSB1

+ttyUSB2

+

+# Embedded MPC platforms

+ttyPSC0

+ttyPSC1

+ttyPSC2

+ttyPSC3

+ttyPSC4

+ttyPSC5

+

+# PA-RISC mux ports

+ttyB0

+ttyB1

+

+# Standard hypervisor virtual console

+hvc0

+

+# Oldstyle Xen console

+xvc0

Standard consoles

-tty0

tty1

tty2

tty3

@@ -74,7 +94,14 @@

tty62

tty63

-# Same as above, but these only occur with devfs devices

+# devfs consoles

+# Note: On kernels greater than 2.6.12, this is not needed.

+

+# Standard serial ports, with devfs

+tts/0

+tts/1

+

+# Standard consoles, with devfs

vc/1

vc/2

vc/3

So, it looks like the only non-commented lines that are removed by the update are tts/0 and tty0, and in fact tts/0 is re-added later in the file. Perhaps the tty0 is crucial? I went with the poster's suggestion and left the existing file alone.