Organizing Linux Information!

While doing an upgrade on your Debian or Ubuntu system, if you ever encounter the following error message:
E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/apt/extended_states (1)

all you need to do is to rename that file to something else. For example:
# cd /var/lib/apt/
# mv extended_states extended_states.tmp
Now you can continue whatever you were doing with apt-get, aptitude or [...]

So you would think that just removing a package from your Debian system would remove all the configuration files and other related files associated with that package, right? But that is not the case. There is a difference between “purging” and “removing” in Debian. As far as I understand, removing a package by the following [...]

Purpose: Debian has a very powerful package management system called APT. Learning some useful commands can really unleash the true power and usefulness of this package management system. From time to time I will add commands and other tips and tricks that will be helpful to solve some issues and get work done faster. The [...]

Recently I ended up in a situation where I had to use an old version of watchdog package from Etch (4.0) on Debian Lenny (5.0) because of a bug in Lenny’s version.
First you need to uninstall the current version  (5.4-10) of  watchdog package:
apt-get purge watchdog
Download the watchdog package from Etch and install it.
# wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/watchdog/watchdog_5.2.6-6_i386.deb
# [...]

Today, the Debian Lenny’s backports has been officially started. The name of the backport is lenny-backports just like previous backports. To start using the Lenny backports just add the following file to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free
and give the following command:
# apt-get update
To start installing packages from lenny-backports give the following command:
apt-get [...]

Purpose: This blog entry will show you the steps involved to switch from Debian’s classic ‘apt-get’ tool to ‘aptitude’. This blog assumes that you are familiar with ‘apt-get‘ tool on Debian systems. Somewhere along Debian Etch release, Debian Developer recommended to start using aptitude instead of apt-get. We won’t go into the details of the [...]

Purpose: This is quick guide to show how you can upgrade to the latest stable release of Debian – 5.0 (Lenny). You can also read more information about the release here.
Step 1: Change your sources.list file
nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Change all the instances of “etch” to “lenny”. Save and quit the file. Your file should look something like [...]

Purpose: If you are using Debian Lenny and are installing software packages using apt-get then you might have noticed the new version of apt-get in Lenny installs the “recommends” packages automatically thus increasing the number of packages installed on your computer. The “apt-get” in Debian Etch (4.0) did not use to install “recommends” packages.  In [...]

Purpose: Suppose you have multiple machines/computers running Debian Linux and you do experiment with them a lot like installing various .deb packages, tweaking some hardware, installing kernels, testing various hardware and then re-installing the system again and the cycle goes on and on. Now the problem with this is that every time you do [...]