Jump to content

Upgrade Debian to Ubuntu? What to Backup?


apollon77

Recommended Posts

Hey,

 

I'm currently using Debian Wheezy Armbian and think on Upgrading to Jessie. This should be no problem using the Upgrade script as in documentation.

 

Now I've seen that also Ubuntu Trusty ist available.

 

Is there an upgrade from Debian Wheezy to Ubuntu Trusty possible? Does it have any consequences? Or should I stay within Debian?

 

And as additional question: I currently backup the following directories:

 

/etc /root /home /var/backups /var/lib /var/local /var/opt /var/mail /srv /opt /usr/local

 

Is this enough? Or how should I backup before such a upgrade procedure?

 

Thank you for your infos.

 

Ingo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Puh, Debian or Ubuntu is a very ehtical Question.

 

My (subjective) advice is: stay with Debian and upgrade to Debian testing (sid stretch). In my optinion Ubuntu is an commercialized Debian, it gets most of its packages from the Debian project and thus relies on the Debian package maintainers. If you keep Debian and change your Debian version to testing (change wheezy to sid stretch in your apt config file and use apt update, apt dist-upgrade) you will get updates much faster than with Ubuntu. 

 

Debian testing can be described as a rolling release distro (like arch linux, but a little bit slower). I by myself use Debian testing on most of my PC's, Laptops and ARM boards and I am pretty happy with it.

 

I know, this is not the 'stable' release of Debian, but in my opinion even the Debian 'unstable' distro is far away from being unstable :)

 

Hope this helps,

giri

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, giri@nwrk.biz said:

If you keep Debian and change your Debian version to testing (change wheezy to sid in your apt config file) you will get updates much faster than with Ubuntu. 

sid is "unstable", not "testing"

 

4 minutes ago, giri@nwrk.biz said:

it gets most of packages from the Debian project and thus relies on the Debian package maintainers

First part of your sentence doesn't imply the second part. Ubuntu packages have dedicated (independent) maintainers, and most of the sources are 3rd party in relation to Debian or Ubuntu anyway, different distributions just choose different versions and apply additional patches on top.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, zador.blood.stained said:

sid is "unstable", not "testing"

 

First part of your sentence doesn't imply the second part. Ubuntu packages have dedicated (independent) maintainers, and most of the sources are 3rd party in relation to Debian or Ubuntu anyway, different distributions just choose different versions and apply additional patches on top.

 

Jup my bad, I of course meant stretch.

 

Ubuntu packages are clearly based on packages from Debian's unstable branch... You just have to read some bugreports in Ubuntu's bugtracker.... Ubuntu package maintainers often wait for bugs to be fixed in Debian.... Ubuntu is clearly using work from Debian without contributing back! 

(I am afraid this will lead to an very subjective offtopic discussion, which maybe should not belong into this thread... :D)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, giri@nwrk.biz said:

Jup my bad, I ofcourse meant stretch.

For Debian you can use "testing" as release specifier in APT lists to use it as a "rolling release" and use "apt dist-upgrade" to upgrade from one testing release to the next one without changing APT lists.

 

5 minutes ago, giri@nwrk.biz said:

Ubuntu packages are clearly based on packages from Debian's unstable branch. 

Even if so, not all packages present in Ubuntu repositories (especially in the "universe" component) can be found in Debian ones. Whatever, this discussion is off-topic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, zador.blood.stained said:

For Debian you can use "testing" as release specifier in APT lists to use it as a "rolling release" and use "apt dist-upgrade" to upgrade from one testing release to the next one without changing APT lists.

Jup, this would be the neatest way.

 

Just now, zador.blood.stained said:

Even if so, not all packages present in Ubuntu repositories (especially in the "universe" component) can be found in Debian ones.

As I said in my first post:

Just now, giri@nwrk.biz said:

it gets most of its packages from the Debian project and thus relies on the Debian package maintainers

Packages from universe are not in the standard Ubuntu release and thus not supported/maintained by Ubuntu.

 

This Ubuntu vs. Debian debate is still a matter of personal taste, I'd (as you may have noticed :D) clearly go for Debian. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 17.5.2016 at 8:29 PM, apollon77 said:

Is there an upgrade from Debian Wheezy to Ubuntu Trusty possible? Does it have any consequences? Or should I stay within Debian?

And as additional question: I currently backup the following directories:

/etc /root /home /var/backups /var/lib /var/local /var/opt /var/mail /srv /opt /usr/local

Is this enough? Or how should I backup before such a upgrade procedure?

 

Debian and Ubuntu are two entirely different distributions. While Debian is the foundation for free software and bound to stricter rules, Ubuntu is a commercialized spin-off prone to vendor lock-in and possibly abuse of free software.

If you'd like to change to Ubuntu, my advice would be to start with a current download, for an upgrade to Debian stretch ( currently in testing, probably stable by the end of june ) you can follow Debian instructions for update/dist-upgrade.

In any case image your existing installation so you can later mount it to recover settings etc. for your new system. Good luck.

 

Personally I'd advise you to stay with Debian and avoid the bloat created by the offshot Ubuntu.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use - Privacy Policy - Guidelines