Upgrade from etch to lenny

Debian has released a stable version of Debian 5.0 (lenny). If you’re running previous version of Debian, you can easily upgrade.

1. Update all packages currently installed to the latest etch versions

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade


2. Replace all occurrences of etch with lenny in the apt sources file (pico /etc/apt/sources.list). Here’s an example of what the file could look like after the change:

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main non-free
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib


3. Update apt repository

apt-get update


4. Upgrade apt, dpkg and aptitude packages first

apt-get install apt dpkg aptitude


5. Do a dist-upgrade to upgrade the rest of the system

apt-get dist-upgrade


6. Reboot

reboot


7. Check the debian version

cat /etc/debian_version


It should read version 5.0.0 or greater