Upgrading Sarge -> Etch

2007-01-08 2-minute read

After updating my /etc/apt/source.list, the first step was to upgrade the kernel image. I tried:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6-686

But got unmet dependencies issues. So I tried:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.18-3-686

I was in way too much of a hurry and didn’t notice that apt decided to uninstall grub. Not sure why Got the following:

Setting up linux-image-2.6.18-3-686 (2.6.18-7) ...
Running depmod.
Finding valid ramdisk creators.
Using mkinitramfs-kpkg to build the ramdisk.
readlink: invalid option -- m
Try `readlink --help' for more information.
readlink: invalid option -- m
Try `readlink --help' for more information.
initrd.img() points to  (/boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-3-686) -- doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-2.6.18-3-686.postinst line 585.
readlink: invalid option -- m
Try `readlink --help' for more information.
readlink: invalid option -- m
Try `readlink --help' for more information.
vmlinuz() points to  (/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-3-686) -- doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-2.6.18-3-686.postinst line 585.
The provided postinst hook script [/sbin/update-grub] could not be run.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.18-3-686 (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 2
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-2.6-686:
linux-image-2.6-686 depends on linux-image-2.6.18-3-686; however:
Package linux-image-2.6.18-3-686 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6-686 (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of kernel-image-2.6-686:
kernel-image-2.6-686 depends on linux-image-2.6-686; however:
Package linux-image-2.6-686 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing kernel-image-2.6-686 (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-2.6.18-3-686
linux-image-2.6-686
kernel-image-2.6-686
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So I tried:

sudo apt-get install grub

I got chastized with:

You shouldn't call /sbin/update-grub. Please call /usr/sbin/update-grub instead!

But it worked. Now we’re getting some where. Next I did a reboot.

All came up fine.

And then, because it is primarily a samba machine:

sudo apt-get install samba

And finally:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade