Upgrade from 3.3 to 3.4

[vulcanidiot]

Is there an upgrade process for hd installs from 3.3 to 3.4 or do I just blow away everything and start over?

I really like Knoppix - I'm learning how to remaster my own CDs now - and hope to have a couple of specific-role server / client CDs coming out soon.


Thanks

[Cuddles]

Vulcanidiot,

I got this "knowledge" from Eco2Geek, so, don't quote me on this...

But, I've heard you need to reinstall, the Live CD doesn't have the "upgrade" ability, only an install, and from what I hear, you can upgrade through apt-get, I would assume, but it is going to be "broken pipe" city after you do.

I was thinking that they just "rolled out" the Live CD for those who want to "try" it out, get comfy with it, etc... and later will be coming out with an "easy" way for those of us who can't just "gut" our hard drive installs to reinstall the new version, or "hodge-podge" the upgrade through numerous apt-get patching.

I guess only time will tell, if you can handle the wait, for me, a 56k phone line isn't going to cut it, having to "pull" a 700 meg download through phone wire run probably by Alexander Bell. I'd really like to see what 3.4 looks like :(

Oh well, hopefully this helps, and, if my information is wrong, I not only stand corrected, but will update my "knowledge base" of incorrect information for the next person :D
Cuddles

[eco2geek]

got this "knowledge" from Eco2Geek, so, don't quote me on this...

Don't quote me on it either. :wink:

I posed the a similar question to Kano, the Kanotix guy, and his answer was:


Basically the best way is to use a seperate partition for /home if you like to reinstall often. A backup of manually changed files in /etc is good too. If you use a home partition then you only have to change one line in /etc/fstab (or just replace the file) to activate your home at bootup.

(You can quote him.)

[Pydron]

I highly doubt that the Klaus and Co. would push for an "easy" upgrade path for hd-installed Knoppix boxes, because this distrobution is only supposed to be a Live CD; hd-install is an extra.

However, I do have some advice. You might want to create seperate partions for your data. Example, one partion for your root directory and one partition for your home direcotry. And that way, when you want to "upgrade" to the latest knoppix you just need to reformat your root partion and install knoppix and leaving your home partion untouched.

- Derek

*EDIT* D'oh, beaten to the punch!

[Cuddles]

Ok, in response, FIFO style:

Eco2Geek, sorry bout that, didn't mean to imply you were being quoted, just what knowledge I had gained from you :idea:

Pydron, and for that matter, Kano, when I installed my Knoppix, I was but a "lil noob", not gained much since then, but, I did the complete install into a single partition - I know, bad - since then, I've only accomplished "breaking" out a small portion of that to a swap partition.

So, when my system has problems, the "complete" system gets affected by it. If I was bright, I'd get the v3.4, gut the system again, and then install again, but this time with a broken down partition setup. Only things stopping me are: (1) no clue on what the partitions sizing would be, (2) can't get an easy way of getting ahold of the v3.4 (again, 56k stinks), lastly, I'd hate to have to go through, yet another, attempt of getting all the packages I already have working and installed - hopefully harmoniously, at this time.

I guess this is still way better than Windows' OS's, for those "upgrades" usually require a complete gut/install - at least with Linux, you can "band-aide" it for a while, until you have to. :D

Cuddles

[eco2geek]

Just teasing, Cuddles. Although there is some truth to that: I'm certainly not a guru!

I like PartitionMagic (run from a floppy) a lot for repartitioning, mainly due to its easy to use GUI. It can also handle ext3 and NTFS, and will do lossless resizing. But it's not "free software." Anyone have a suggestion for a free replacement?

[IsaacKuo]

QTParted, which is included in Knoppix, is a Partition Magic lookalike.

[vulcanidiot]

"He knows doctor ... he knows ... he is constructing a crude cannon ... " Spock

The /home partition sounds great, and from what you guys are saying I wonder if a /etc partition wouldn't be a good idea also.

Kudos to the Knopsters for turning Linux installs "upside right".
"Make it work first, then install it" I like it.

I also like the fact that changed files on the system then seem to be isolated to /home and whatever I f*** with in /etc.

One little nit I have with the whole thing - when I click on the hard disk icons to auto mount a couple of discovered ext3 drives I have on the system, it seems to mount them as read-only, so then I have to shell in, unmount and then add the actual -rw to the mount command.

I figured adding -rw to the /etc/fstab (on an hd install) would solve the problem and it did. It would be nice if the thing came up out of the box with the discovered drives as rw, as I also added a S91samba to rc.5 to start samba automatically and to start sshd automatically which I would think would be activated at bootup - or is that considered a security no-no for a distribution?

-t-




got this "knowledge" from Eco2Geek, so, don't quote me on this...

Don't quote me on it either. :wink:

I posed the a similar question to Kano, the Kanotix guy, and his answer was:


Basically the best way is to use a seperate partition for /home if you like to reinstall often. A backup of manually changed files in /etc is good too. If you use a home partition then you only have to change one line in /etc/fstab (or just replace the file) to activate your home at bootup.

(You can quote him.)

[eco2geek]

QTParted looks good. But is there anything that looks like PartitionMagic that can be run without being in X Windows?

[zentu]

The /home partition sounds great, and from what you guys are saying I wonder if a /etc partition wouldn't be a good idea also.


If you ever mess with 'BSD, then it is reccomended to have multiple partitons (around 6 if I remember correctly) for all of your data structures, but that does include the swap directorly (and that is for just a multi-user/single-user setup [what I mean is not just a file server]). That way you can keep your root, home, swap, temp, bin, etc, and any others from screwing up your system, and only making the reinstalling of any software easier. It also makes sense to do the same for WindowsXP/2000, if you look for your system variables one of your options is for home/settings/documents directory, which allows you to places all of you documents on say a removeable harddrive, or a different mirrored RAID system.

[Irgu]

QTParted looks good. But is there anything that looks like PartitionMagic that can be run without being in X Windows?

Yes, it's called QTParted :) QTParted doesn't need X for example SystemRescueCD uses it in console mode: http://www.sysresccd.org/ Another advantage it has, it's always quite up-to-date. For example it can safely move data around on NTFS so no need to defragment before resizing. Knoppix 3.4 still has some quite old tools :(

[zz9pluralzalpha]

QTParted doesn't need X for example SystemRescueCD uses it in console mode

The version of QTParted on the SystemRescueCD uses QtEmbedded, a framebuffer version of the Qt toolkit for use in console mode (Gtk+ has a similar option). I'm not sure whether it needs to be specially compiled for this, but it isn't the default behavior of the program.


The best way to upgrade an installed Knoppix is to Debianize your installation and use apt. If you can't cope with this, you may prefer an alternative distro for your hdd such as Fedora or Mandrake, or one of the commercial distros (SuSE has a free live-CD so you can try before you buy). I've been running a Debianized Knoppix 3.3 for about six months. It doesn't make much sense to upgrade to the latest knoppix, though you can use the live-CD to learn a few tricks.

--
Mike