Upgrade LinuxCNC 2.7.14 Debian 7 Wheezy to LinuxCNC 2.8

If you are more comfortable with a GUI then you could do the first bit in a terminal then the remainder in the Synaptic GUI

To use the buildbot packages on your computer, first add the buildbot archive signing key to your apt keychain by running this command from a terminal:If you get an error downloading the key it may be caused by being behind a firewall or a proxy server. In this case it may be worthwhile specifying port 80 rather than using the default of 11371:Close the terminal, then from the Main Menu, open Synaptic Package Manager.

Select Search in the menu bar and do a search using linuxcnc as the search term. Right click on any linuxcnc results and then click Mark for Removal. When all installed results are selected click Apply on the menu bar and these will be deleted.

Click Settings from the menu and select Repositories.

You can then either edit or delete existing LinuxCNC entries from the repositories list. You need to end up with the following set of stanzas as the only references to LinuxCNC:
Where:

<distro> is stretch or wheezy

<branch> is master or 2.8

<rt_type> is rtpreempt or rt

So if you installed the wheezy version and wanted 2.8 branch then you would have:
When this is completed Synaptic should do a package reload, if not do a manual Reload from the menu bar.

Now do a Search with linuxcnc as the search term and the result should be a list of newly available LinuxCNC packages

Right click on the package you want to install and then select Mark for Installation.

For rtpreempt you would select linuxcnc-uspace and for rt it would be linuxcnc.

You may also select the documentation if you want it installed locally and/or the -dev package if you intend to build new realtime components and/or alternate front-ends for linuxcnc.

When you have made all your selections, click Apply on the menu bar and the selected packages will be installed.

AndrewL wrote:

then open up a terminal:
sudo dpkg -i /home/<name>/Downloads/python-serial_2.5-2.1_all.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

As general info, the use of dpkg is no adviseable as it does not check for dependencies or version suitability, instead use gdebi with GUI by double clicking on the downloaded file, or in terminal:
sudo gdebi /home/<name>/Downloads/python-serial_2.5-2.1_all.deb
And no need to force the install as with dpkg.

You can use apt on deb packages as well.