[asterisk-users] Asterisk on Debian Lenny with timerfd

[Dave Platt]

> I know this is an {*} list but does anyone know if simply adding the Squeeze
> repository to my sources.lst and running an 'aptitude
> upgrade/safe-upgrade/full-upgrade" will just upgrade Lenny -> Squeeze
> without me having to rebuild the system from scratch?

In my experience:  you're likely to run into a few things which
need some amount of manual fiddling, after an upgrade of this sort,
but it's usually quite manageable.

The Debian people seem to be very good about making sure that
stable-version-to-stable-version upgrades go smoothly... the
process isn't perfect (from what I've seen) but it's usually
quite close.  The upgrade path is usually tested out quite well
before the release team throws The Big Switch, and there normally
are good release notes which describe the corner cases which may
need manual intervention.

I have several systems which have been through multiple major
Debian upgrades, without having to be slagged down and rebuilt
from the ground up.  That's better than I ever achieved with (e.g.)
Red Hat, which (in my experience) really didn't take at all well to
in-place upgrades... I usually had to do a fresh install and then
port my personal files over.

Things may not be as smooth when jumping from Stable to Testing,
precisely because this isn't an official-release pathway, and
the packages in Testing are usually in somewhat of a state of
flux.  Even upgrades *within* the Testing distribution can leave
you with a system which doesn't fly right... this isn't common but
it does happen.  For example, a recent upgrade within Stable pulled
a bunch of the firmware files out of the kernel package and moved
them to a separate "non-free" package - if I hadn't noticed an error
message during RAMdisk rebuilt, my next boot would have left me
with a non-functioning wired Ethernet adapter.

If you decide to follow this route, follow the Debian instructions
for upgrading... back up your package configurations, and (I suggest)
everything in the /etc/ directory hierarchy, as well as all of your
personal files.  This will give you a much better chance to invoke
the spirit of the ancient pagan god DoOver, if something goes wrong
during the upgrade.