Now that Debian 5.0 (codenamed Lenny) is released, you may want to consider upgrading if you are a Debian 'Etch' user (btw, all Debian releases are named after Toy Story characters).

First we need to edit our sources.list file:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Replace any mention of 'etch' with the word 'lenny'. Then:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install apt dpkg aptitude
sudo aptitude full-upgrade

That's it! To similarly update your Ubuntu box to the latest version (8.10), you need to do something different:

sudo adept_manager --dist-upgrade

and choose "version upgrade" from the dialog. Answer all questions it asks...and pray.......