With the announcement that antiX 13.2 is close to release, the question arises for this new(ish) Linux user: what's the preferred method of upgrading a system? The last upgrade I did (MEPIS 11 32-bit to MEPIS 11 64-bit) was on a machine with space to just install the new version in a separate partition and keep the old intact, but my two antiX systems don't have that kind of extra hard disk space; the desktop machine shares a 40 GB hard disk between a crufty old Win98 install and antiX but has /home in a separate partition, while the 15+ year old laptop has 16 GB shared between Win98 and antiX and has /home in the root partition.

What I presume to be the basic method for machines with limited space is to use Synaptic to export my installed packages list, store that in /home somewhere, install the new version over the old and tell the installer to preserve /home (after backing up /home to a USB key or similar, especially in the case of the one with /home in root), then import the installed packages list to reinstall stuff I've added. I'd guess that will take an hour or more per machine; still better than half a day or more to upgrade Windows even back when"upgrade" meant something other than"clean install at a discounted price".

You basically have 2 options when running antiX.

1. Run it with default Wheezy repos (13/13.1/13.2)
2. Run it as a 'rolling' release using Testing or Sid repos. (This is how antiX usually defaults).

Whichever you choose, you do not need to install again for whan 13.2 is released as many of the changes will be seen in an apt-get dist-upgrade.

For users running antiX-12 or earlier versions with the stable repos, then a dist-upgrade may result in breakage.

If users wish to re-install, then of course they are free to do so, but my advice is NOT to use the preserve /home option in the installer. Instead, save your contents of /home elsewhere eg another partition/usb stick, install as usual and once installed copy back necessary files. Be careful when copying back antiX-specific config files such as xinitrc, all the windows managers config files etc.

anticapitalista wrote:2. Run it as a 'rolling' release using Testing or Sid repos. (This is how antiX usually defaults).

Whichever you choose, you do not need to install again for whan 13.2 is released as many of the changes will be seen in an apt-get dist-upgrade.

For those of us who aren't (yet) Linux gurus, it might be worth mentioning that if you follow directions, you'll be clicking"cancel" on the distro selection box during install and wind up with Wheezy repositories (which, based on how the installer works, is what I'd consider the default). Further, folks like me aren't likely to be using apt-get dist-upgrade, because a) we weren't aware of it, and b) apt-get from the command line is, in general, a great deal less comfortable than using Synaptic to manage package installation (and occasionally removal). FWIW, the installer doesn't make it clear that by choosing the"know nothing" default and winding up with Wheezy, you're losing rolling upgrade status; I've got four installs here (including one in a VM within MEPIS) and all are on Wheezy, but I'd almost certainly have put at least on on rolling status had I known.

This condition makes it sound almost as if you're recommending that those of us who don't do things at the command line"because it's easier" should just stick with 13.1 until 13.5 comes out and requires a clean reinstall.

I'm also uneasy with"many" of the changes showing up in the package channels; that sounds as if there isn't a complete upgrade path from 13.1 to 13.2 short of reinstalling.

Silent Observer, you ARE a linux guru; you just haven't realized it yet : )

default and winding up with Wheezy, you're losing rolling upgrade status

Defaulting to Wheezy prevents user from shooting himself/herself/itself in the foot.
You can't (as a practical matter) undo a dist-upgrade.
vs
At will, you can later choose to edit etc/sources.list and perform dist-upgrade

skidoo wrote:Silent Observer, you ARE a linux guru; you just haven't realized it yet : )

Maybe; I'm about where I was with DOS in 1987: I can do basic stuff (file management, etc.) at the command line from memory, I can write a script with a great deal of looking up commands (and later finding there's a single command with a couple option switches that will replace an entire function that took me hours to construct), and I can analyze a fairly simple script to see what it does before running it (in case I don't fully trust the source); I'm starting to understand how the overall Linux directory structure works -- and since I'm working in both MEPIS and antiX, I'm getting some synergy, like learning Spanish and Latin at the same time. I haven't blown up my system in a couple months...

default and winding up with Wheezy, you're losing rolling upgrade status

Defaulting to Wheezy prevents user from shooting himself/herself/itself in the foot.
You can't (as a practical matter) undo a dist-upgrade.
vs
At will, you can later choose to edit etc/sources.list and perform dist-upgrade

Of course it's new user protection -- I was just disagreeing with this statement:

2. Run it as a 'rolling' release using Testing or Sid repos. (This is how antiX usually defaults).

If following instructions produces the one non-rolling result available, then non-rolling is the default. In this case, even if I don't click cancel, the repo chooser is defaulted to"stable" rather than"test" or"sid". Not saying that's a bad thing, just that rolling isn't the"default" condition. I just installed a new VM with antiX 13.1 Full, and set that to"test". How would I convert the installation on my secondary machine (which was originally"base" and to which I added the"full" control center and Synaptic -- but probably isn't all the way to"full" yet) -- is it really as simple as changing to the correct repos, booting to a command line as root, and running"apt-get dist-upgrade"? I recall there are a bunch of switches for apt-get; would I need"-install" or some such?

I like the idea of rolling; it's the one thing I really think is missing from MEPIS (though with Warren currently distracted by real life, the roll would be pretty slow if not directly driven by upstream). I just looked for apt-notify and found apt-watcher, which got me a few upgrades, but is there a way to fully upgrade base to full, or would it be less work to reinstall?

No matter how hard I try. I can't break my AntiX 11 base rolling testing install and i have put it through hell.
Kernel testing. RazorQT install/uninstall. Mat install/uninstall. LXLE dual boot install and uninstall.
LXPanel install/uninstall. Wbar install/unistall. I think I will try

linux-image-3.11.5-antix.1-486-smp_3.11.5-antix.1-486-smp-1_i386.deb
linux-headers-3.11.5-antix.1-486-smp_3.11.5-antix.1-486-smp-1_i386.deb

next because I know how my dumpster emachine has hissy fits with newer kernels. Some take and some don't.

Okay, I think I understand how to use apt-get to upgrade my installed antiX, but since what I have isn't really Full (installed as Base before adding the Full version of the Control Centre and Synaptic), I'm curious how I'd go about upgrading to Full along with the upgrade to 13.2. I presume I first need to change the apparent identity of my install so it thinks it's Full, and possibly change to Test repos, before running"apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade" and letting the system upgrade itself.

I've downloaded the 13.2 ISO and burned a CD; the alternative I'm considering is letting Synaptic write my markings to a file in ~/, installing from CD with"preserve /home", and then importing the markings list and letting Synaptic reinstall everything (an overnight job, perhaps). I'm confident this would work, but dist-upgrade promises to be faster and preserve my installed packages without having to go through a separate (potentially multi-hour) step. Is the dist-upgrade method even available with my install state, or would it be more work to"convert" my Base to Full first than to install clean from CD and reinstall packages?

Yipe! I'm glad I tested that in a VirtualBox! I just ran"apt-get update" followed by"apt-get dist-upgrade" in antiX 13.1 64-bit Full and Fluxbox (in VirtualBox on my main machine) and wound up with Debian running on IceWM, no trace of antiX to be seen. I'm pretty sure that didn't work as intended.

I've deleted that VM (it was just for testing Google Chrome in antiX inside the VM -- successful, on this machine, but won't work on the machine where I need it) and can easily reinstall from CD, but I'm wondering what I did wrong?

Silent Observer wrote:I just ran"apt-get update" followed by"apt-get dist-upgrade"

my sources.list points to sid repos, and my prefs state"prefer the highest version" but I don't"dist-upgrade" b/c I've learned that doing so would add 600Mb+ to my system without providing any noticeable (speed) benefit.

apt-get provides an in-between command (apt-get -u upgrade) that you might want to use.
check out the the"3.4 Upgrading packages" section of this doc page:

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html"
linktext was:"http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-h ... et.en.html"
====================================

Hmm... consider the following points and see if they apply:

1. During the dist-upgrade, at some point you were asked about keeping your version or a new version of slim.conf. If you accepted the new version, your system will likely default to the icewm desktop. This can be changed back in the control center > edit login options.

2. I assume that by Debian, you mean you have debian on the icewm button bar. With no theming chose, icewm defaults to a really plain theme that was originally made for debian. If you still had the antix repo's enabled, you should still have all the antix tools. The system just looks a little off.

Now if those items don't apply to your situation, then I'm with you, don't know what happened!

I am gonna keep this short being one of the members who has a lot of experience breaking installs.

Basically. You are having 2 competing icewm and competing slim installs. AntiX and Debian.
Debian is gonna rule the install on a dist-upgrade like for icewm.

If wanting AntiX menus and AntiX tweaks. I had to go with manual downloads from Daves repos and install one at a time
and make sure hidden files in /home corresponded with AntiX and not Debian. It is just easier to grab what you wanna
keep off of base and then install full and re-insert what you kept.

Because AntiX and Debian are Siamesed together. What one eats effects the other.

dolphin_oracle wrote:Hmm... consider the following points and see if they apply:

1. During the dist-upgrade, at some point you were asked about keeping your version or a new version of slim.conf. If you accepted the new version, your system will likely default to the icewm desktop. This can be changed back in the control center > edit login options.

2. I assume that by Debian, you mean you have debian on the icewm button bar. With no theming chose, icewm defaults to a really plain theme that was originally made for debian. If you still had the antix repo's enabled, you should still have all the antix tools. The system just looks a little off.

Now if those items don't apply to your situation, then I'm with you, don't know what happened!

I don't recall being asked about slim, but there were literally six or eight different points during the (very long!) upgrade sequence where I was asked things whether to keep my modified version or use the package maintainer's version; one of those might well have been for slim. Defaulting to icwm wouldn't be a huge problem; as noted, I could change that back to fluxbox with little trouble. By"Debian" I mean that where the icewm normally says"antiX" on the menu button, I had"Debian" in the same location, along with an interface that wasn't just like the icewm I've used briefly (I quite like fluxbox, so haven't spent much time in the other options).

I suppose it's possible I still had antiX and it had just been skinned to seem to be Debian, but that would be a terrible thing to have happen on a production system; I'd be thinking all my carefully set up tweaks and customizations were gone. It's enough to set my confidence in Linux back a good bit, in that it's making me afraid of upgrades (vs. installing clean, which is a lot more work but really only takes about twice as long). Further, that was the only antiX I had installed on rolling repos; now I need to start over (I'm not sure whether to just install 13.2 to begin with, or spend still more hours trying to figure out how to make the upgrade process work as expected).

Of course, this is partly my own fault; I forgot to make a snapshot of the VM after initially installing Luddite, so instead of just clicking"restore snapshot" I have to reinstall from scratch...

Okay, working on the actual system I want to upgrade now (the reason I was testing on a VM) -- I decided this would be simplified if I got that install out of the hybrid state (installed as Base, partially converted to Full), so I've installed the same version Full in place of the Base, preserving the old /home; while I was at it, I changed to Testing repos (presumably that will simplify upgrading from 13.1 to 13.2, and I figured letting the installer do it would increase my chances of having the correct repo list afterward). The system starts up, it has all the Full things it should (Libre Office, Synaptic, fully populated Control Centre, etc.), my wallpaper is preserved -- but when I try to read back in the Synaptic"markings" that I saved to a file before starting the upgrade, I'm informed I have 14 broken packages, and Edit, Fix Broken Packages gives an error box with the following:
I don't know if this is because I changed to Testing (not sure why I wouldn't just get upgrades if that were the case) or because I pinned something without recalling I'd done it, or because I haven't installed all the upgrades to Testing before trying to import my installed package list (there's a big ol' stack -- 974 to install/upgrade, 15 to remove, a quantity that makes me a little nervous). Suggestions? Worst case, I'm not that worried about the packages I've installed previously; most of them were games or"light" productivity software, the latter readily replaced by Libre Office, but I am concerned about spending an hour or so letting the system install all those upgrades and then having to spend a half hour or more restoring to 13.1/Wheezy to get something that works and doesn't claim it's plain vanilla Debian.

I might just point out that installing Linux isn't a primary hobby for me; I quit seeing the computer as an end in itself and started wanting to treat it as primarily a tool about the time I upgraded to Win98 (perhaps not coincidentally, that was the last Windows upgrade I really looked forward to).

Did you install the full version on top of base or did you clean out the partition first? If you installed on top of base then chaos will ensue.

Why not just install 13.2 directly? Why take the long road when you want something that just works?

If downloading is an issue, anti has already made an xdelta3 patch that will take 13.0 iso --> 13.2 iso. I'm sure he would be glad to make a patch to take 13.1 iso --> 13.2 iso.

preserving the old /home;

If we are talking about preserving a base install on /home and then a install of Full.