I'm beginning to think maybe I should just leave things as they are and simply expect the approximately 120 'Warning's whenever I check for updates via the terminal.
On webpages answering similar questions there are comments similar to, (though not as complete and clear as), this bit from the https://itsfoss.com/fixing-target-packa ... ple-times/ page I mentioned earlier, by Abhishek Prakash 2022 :
"To be clear, this is not an error. If you have duplicate entries in the sources list, your system will still be downloading the packages from it. It’s not stopping your system from working as usual. This is why it is a warning message, not an error. It’s just that it expects a repository to be added only once."
Here : https://www.linuxquestions.org/question ... ost5955637
from 2019, 'Senior Member' 'snowday' says :
"It is a harmless error notifying you that there are redundant, duplicate entries in your sources.list. You may feel free to ignore this error...Generally speaking, not a good idea to directly edit system files (like sources.list) unless you are 100% sure it is necessary, and that you know exactly what you are doing."
I'm reluctant to edit these important things, that were created by my carefully following the Debian Wiki instructions for installing Debian 13 and the necessary stuff to get the (Optimus enabled) Nvidia graphics card to work properly. Especially since it seems that now, with the 'modernized' system, there is only one sources list, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources, not a main one, /etc/apt/sources.list, that you're not supposed to touch, and a second editable one, now the only one, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources.
I fetched the sources list again, with the two different commands. The 'cat' list has, I'll call them paragraphs, 5 paragraphs, and the nano list has 3 paragraphs. Is that as you would expect them to be? I don't see any paragraph that is exactly the same as another, in either set.
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources
brings :
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie trixie-updates
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://security.debian.org/debian-security
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://security.debian.org/debian-security/
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie-updates
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources
brings :
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie trixie-updates
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://security.debian.org/debian-security
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
I may have the .bak file, but I don't know how to get the computer to make use of it, if the need were to arise.
Maybe at this point, in case nobody feels it is worth continuing the attempt to get me to understand things, I should say thank you all for trying to help, and I'm sorry for wasting your time.
On webpages answering similar questions there are comments similar to, (though not as complete and clear as), this bit from the https://itsfoss.com/fixing-target-packa ... ple-times/ page I mentioned earlier, by Abhishek Prakash 2022 :
"To be clear, this is not an error. If you have duplicate entries in the sources list, your system will still be downloading the packages from it. It’s not stopping your system from working as usual. This is why it is a warning message, not an error. It’s just that it expects a repository to be added only once."
Here : https://www.linuxquestions.org/question ... ost5955637
from 2019, 'Senior Member' 'snowday' says :
"It is a harmless error notifying you that there are redundant, duplicate entries in your sources.list. You may feel free to ignore this error...Generally speaking, not a good idea to directly edit system files (like sources.list) unless you are 100% sure it is necessary, and that you know exactly what you are doing."
I'm reluctant to edit these important things, that were created by my carefully following the Debian Wiki instructions for installing Debian 13 and the necessary stuff to get the (Optimus enabled) Nvidia graphics card to work properly. Especially since it seems that now, with the 'modernized' system, there is only one sources list, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources, not a main one, /etc/apt/sources.list, that you're not supposed to touch, and a second editable one, now the only one, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources.
I fetched the sources list again, with the two different commands. The 'cat' list has, I'll call them paragraphs, 5 paragraphs, and the nano list has 3 paragraphs. Is that as you would expect them to be? I don't see any paragraph that is exactly the same as another, in either set.
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources
brings :
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie trixie-updates
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://security.debian.org/debian-security
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://security.debian.org/debian-security/
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie-updates
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources
brings :
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie trixie-updates
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://security.debian.org/debian-security
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
I may have the .bak file, but I don't know how to get the computer to make use of it, if the need were to arise.
Maybe at this point, in case nobody feels it is worth continuing the attempt to get me to understand things, I should say thank you all for trying to help, and I'm sorry for wasting your time.
Statistics: Posted by TechTerrorized — 2025-12-31 00:21