Howto update on Debian Lenny

Update The System

Now it's time to check for updates and install them. This is done using the Update Manager. If you see a notification in the taskbar that new updates are available, you can start the Update Manager by clicking on the update icon; otherwise you can start the Update Manager by going to System > Administration > Update Manager:

If new updates are available, the Update Manager will tell you so (you can click on the Check button to refresh the list), and you can click on the Install Updates button to install them. In my case, no updates were available:

Inventory Of What We Have So Far

Now let's browse all menus to see which of our needed applications are already installed:

You should find the following situation ([x] marks an application that is already installed, where [ ] is an application that is missing):

Graphics:
[x] The GIMP
[ ] F-Spot
[ ] Picasa

Internet:
[x] Firefox/Iceweasel
[ ] Opera
[ ] Flash Player
[ ] FileZilla
[ ] Thunderbird/Icedove
[x] Evolution
[ ] aMule
[x] Transmission BitTorrent Client
[ ] Azureus/Vuze
[x] Pidgin
[ ] Skype
[ ] Google Earth
[ ] Xchat IRC

Office:
[x] OpenOffice Writer
[x] OpenOffice Calc
[ ] Adobe Reader
[ ] GnuCash
[ ] Scribus

Sound & Video:
[ ] Amarok
[ ] Audacity
[ ] Banshee
[ ] MPlayer
[x] Rhythmbox Music Player
[ ] gtkPod
[ ] XMMS
[ ] dvd::rip
[ ] Kino
[x] Sound Juicer CD Extractor
[ ] VLC Media Player
[ ] Real Player
[x] Totem
[ ] Xine
[ ] Brasero
[ ] K3B
[ ] Multimedia-Codecs

Programming:
[ ] KompoZer
[ ] Bluefish
[ ] Quanta Plus

Other:
[ ] VMware Server
[ ] TrueType fonts
[ ] Java
[x] Read/Write support for NTFS partitions

So some applications are already on the system. NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on Debian Lenny.

Configure Additional Repositories

Some packages like the Adobe Reader are not available in the standard Debian repositories. The easiest way to make such packages available to your system is to add the Debian-Multimedia repository.

First we open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal):

Become root...

su

... and edit /etc/apt/sources.list:

gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add contrib and non-free to the official Lenny repositories that are already in the file, e.g. as follows...

[...] deb http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free deb-src http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free [...]

... and add the Debian-Multimedia repository (you can find a mirror close to you here), e.g. like this:

[...] deb http://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/debian-multimedia/ stable main deb-src http://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/debian-multimedia/ stable main

Then download the debian-multimedia-keyring package and install it:

wget http://www.debian-multimedia.org/pool/main/d/debian-multimedia-keyring/debian-multimedia-keyring_2008.10.16_all.deb
dpkg -i debian-multimedia-keyring_2008.10.16_all.deb

Finally update your package-list:

apt-get update

Install Additional Software

To install additional applications, open the Synaptic Package Manager (Applications > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager):

In the Synaptic Package Manager, we can install additional software. You can use the Search field to find packages:

Select the following packages for installation (* is a wildcard; e.g. gstreamer0.10* means all packages that start with gstreamer0.10):

• f-spot
• flashplayer-mozilla
• filezilla
• icedove
• icedove-beagle
• icedove-gnome-support
• nautilus-sendto
• amule
• amule-utils-gui
• vuze
• xchat
• xchat-gnome
• acroread*
• mozilla-acroread
• gnucash
• scribus
• scribus-template
• amarok
• audacity
• banshee
• mplayer
• mozilla-mplayer
• w32codecs
• gtkpod-aac
• xmms2*
• dvdrip
• libdvdcss2
• kino
• mozilla-plugin-vlc
• vlc*
• realplayer
• gxine
• gxineplugin
• xineplugin
• brasero
• k3b
• gstreamer0.10*
• bluefish
• quanta
• msttcorefonts
• gdeb
• gdebi
• libasound2
• libc6
• libgcc1
• libqt4-core
• libqt4-gui
• libsigc++-2.0-0c2a
• libstdc++6 libx11-6
• libqtcore4
• libqt4-network
• libqt4-script
• libqt4-xml
• libqt4-dbus
• libqt4-test
• libqtgui4
• libqt4-svg
• libqt4-opengl
• libqt4-designer
• libqt4-assistant
• openjdk-6*
• icedtea-gcjwebplugin

There are also lots of other applications available that you can install as well if you like.

To select a package for installation, click on the checkbox in front of it and select Mark for Installation from the menu that comes up:

If a package has a dependency that needs to be satisfied, a window will pop up. Accept the dependencies by clicking on Mark:

After you've selected the desired packages, click on the Apply button:

Confirm your selection by clicking on Apply:

The packages are now being downloaded from the repositories and installed. This can take a few minutes, so please be patient:

After all packages have been installed, click on Close:

You can leave the Synaptic Package Manager afterwards.