Re: PyQt5

[Urs Liska]

Am 05.12.2016 um 17:13 schrieb Federico Bruni:
> Il giorno lun 5 dic 2016 alle 16:54, Urs Liska <address@hidden> ha
> scritto:
>> I don't worry about the stability of Debian testing but would like to be
>> somewhat assured about the process of switching to it. IIUC it basically
>> boils down to switching the package repositories from stable to testing
>> and upgrading with apt-get, isn't it?
>
> Yes, you can find more on the debian wiki.
> I updated debian stable to testing only once (it's an upgrade that you
> cannot revert).
> The transition was smooth.
>
>>
>> So how high should I consider the risks of substantial complications on
>> the way? And would I have a way to have apt do some kind of rollback?
>
> No rollback, as far as I know.
>
>>
>> Maybe there are other risks stemming from the fact that ... my
>> current setup doesn't refer to vanilla Debian only but has been
>> tailored by the Mint developers?
>
> I guess more than a risk, but you'd better ask on Mint support channels.

Well, since writing the last email I found several posts on the Mint
forums where it is clearly stated that doing this is more or less
*guaranteed* to break the installation.

And I also found a longer article which made me realize one thing: when
I initially installed LMDE it was exactly because it was based on Debian
testing, as a rolling release. Obviously they incrementally stepped back
until they reached the point of basing on Debian stable, which
definitely isn't what I intended.

>
>>
>>>
>>>  My suggestion is switching to Debian testing.
>>>  Why did you choose Linux Mint? Because of desktop environments
>>>  alternative to Gnome which were not available in Debian?
>>
>> Actually I don't really recall what was the trigger for me to switch.
>> Maybe I had some issue with the Debian/Gnome setup I had, or I just
>> wanted to try out something different after reading about Mint?
>> Anyway I chose LMDE, which is a Mint based on Debian instead of Ubuntu
>> repositories.
>> I liked the Cinnamon desktop, and maybe that wasn't (isn't) available
>> under Debian (then)?
>>
>> If I don't have to fear transition quirks I'd also be open to try out
>> others, though.
>
> Cinnamon is available in stable and testing as well:
> https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=cinnamon
>
> I would install debian testing from scratch.
> What is keeping you from doing so? Migrating your configurations is
> boring?

Exactly. Recreating the tools I use, partially compiled from source,
partially from downloaded packages, partially from the distro's repos.

Additionally, I'm not so sure how I should proceed:
I have one "smaller" partition with ~30 GB, mounted as "/" and used for
the LMDE system. Unfortunately this is marked as the boot partition.
Then there's another partition of about the same size where I have
currently installed Ubuntu Mate (to test Frescobaldi 3), but I'd happily
replace that again with Debian.

Questions:
a) how to proceed with the boot flag? Can I simply mark the "new"
partition as bootable when installing Debian, will I then still be able
to boot into LMDE (which I'd want until I know everything works)?
b) how would I proceed with the (big) /home partition? What I don't like
about dual LInux-Linux boots is sharing a home partition. Well, this is
cool, but I find the configuration files disturbing and potentially
confusing.

Urs