There is an issue in Debian Trixie where some people who have installed it find that updates do not work. This is a serious problem for new users who naturally expect to be able to update their system, and who may not have the technical ability to solve the problem.
The problem arises in the Debian Trixie live image, which has two install options: an "expert" install from the boot menu, and a user-friendly install option from the desktop after the system has booted.
For somebody trying out Debian for the first time, the advice is simple: use the user-friendly installer after booting into the desktop. It's called Calamares. Why is it named after fried squid? I don't know, but it works.
The problem exists because the expert install has no option to set up network mirrors (ie internet sources of new and updated software, called repositories). After booting, the Debian file that contains this information (sources.list) will be empty. Previous versions of Debian the expert install prompted users to set up network mirrors, and the file was populated with a list of repositories.
This apparently is a deliberate decision. The rationale seems to be that any expert with an internet connection is going to use the net installer, to get the latest package versions during installation.
A similar logic has always applied to the DVD installation media (ie not a bootable live image): if you're using the DVD, you probably haven't got an internet connection. The default here was not to set up network mirrors by default, but there was a tick box to enable them. Not ticking the box when an internet connection was available would also result in the same issue of updates not being available.
The issue has been confounded by confusion with the entirely unconnected issue of Debian support for a new software source format. People seem to be thinking that the empty sources list is because they haven't "modernised" their sources list. No! The new format is not the default, and won't be for some time.
For anybody who has installed with the "expert" installer from the boot menu of a live image, (or from the DVD iso without enabling mirrors), a reinstall is not necessary: just populate the sources.list manually.
For new users I would recommend the traditional format, since the modern format is not yet supported by all tools and apps in Debian. For instructions, see the following posts:
A working sources list in the old format
No comments:
Post a Comment