[guthrie]

Well,
1) the problem is that dist-upgrade fails. and more specifically even if I just convert apt sources to stable (from etch), apt-fails - can't upgrade, or even do anything - it is in a stuck state.

Errors all shown above - main thing seems to be a lack of ability to get libc6.
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.7-18_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

/var/log/dpkg.log:: (many of these!)
2009-03-29 08:27:34 upgrade libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13etch9+b1 2.7-18
2009-03-29 08:27:34 status half-configured libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13etch9+b1
2009-03-29 08:27:34 status unpacked libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13etch9+b1
2009-03-29 08:27:34 status half-installed libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13etch9+b1
2009-03-29 08:27:41 status unpacked libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13etch9+b1
2009-03-29 08:27:43 status installed libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13etch9+b1

2) Where'd I get the old kernel? Hmm, from apt! :-)
I hadn't upgraded this system in awhile, it was stable, and just running along.

If my kernel is old, why does apt-update not want to update it?