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Joel
Asked: 2010-07-26 05:34:34 +0800 CST

apt-get update fails on Debian etch

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I have a debian server running Etch. I can no longer seem to run apt-get update properly:

root@charm osqa ] apt-get update
Ign http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch Release.gpg
Ign http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch Release
Err http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch/main Packages
  404 Not Found
Err http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch/contrib Packages
  404 Not Found
Err http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch/non-free Packages
  404 Not Found
Failed to fetch http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/etch/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz  404 Not Found
Failed to fetch http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/etch/contrib/binary-i386/Packages.gz  404 Not Found
Failed to fetch http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/etch/non-free/binary-i386/Packages.gz  404 Not Found
Reading package lists... Done
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_main_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch/contrib Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_contrib_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://ftp.uk.debian.org etch/non-free Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_non-free_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

My sources.list file is pretty minimal, it just contains:

###### Debian Main Repos
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib

Any clues? Have the repo locations changed? Thanks, Joel.

debian apt debian-etch

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Debian 4.0 (Etch) is an old release that is no longer supported:

    Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 has been superseded by Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 ("lenny"). Security updates have been discontinued as of the end of February 2010.

    Etch has now been moved to archive.debian.org:

    We intend to copy Etch to archive.debian.org on the evening (UTC) of Sunday 20th June. Etch will then gradually disappear from the mirrors; the dists tree will be immediately removed and the files in the pool will be removed in groups over the following few days.

    Etch has now been removed from ftp.uk.debian.org. You can use the archive by changing your sources.list to:

    deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib

    However, to get security support, you would be better off upgrading to Lenny (and also including security.debian.org in sources.list). See the Lenny Release Notes for upgrade instructions.

    • 14

  2. I took a while after i realized it was a problem with my nameservers .. I couldn't find archive.debian.org

    If you ever have this problem, make sure you can ping google by :

    ping 8.8.8.8

    Then make sure you have nameservers running, you can use google ones : This will do the trick 

    sudo echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" >> /etc/resolv.conf
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