dist-upgrade

[Member jeffmernier]

Hello Gents,

Is anybody knowledgeable enough how to dist-upgrade 19.4 to latest-stabled?

Thanks!

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

1

::

The easiest way is to save the files you want to keep, either on removable media or in another location that you trust.

Then download and install a new version of software and when you are satisfied with it, copy back the files you want to save.

If you really want to try a totally crazy way, change the identification of your repositories and then type in

sudo apt update; sudo dist-upgrade

And see what happens. You’ll almost certainly have some things to update or correct and that’s why the first approach is better. However if you are good at it and capable of understanding and correcting potentially large messes, by all means, experiment. I forewarm you to have a backup or something else. You may end up starting over or you just might get a break.

Backing up FIRST is essential in case it’s a COMPLETE flop!

Seriously the first approach is much safer!

--
Brian Masinick

[Member jeffmernier]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Brian Masinick wrote:

The easiest way is to save the files you want to keep, either on removable media or in another location that you trust.

Then download and install a new version of software and when you are satisfied with it, copy back the files you want to save.

If you really want to try a totally crazy way, change the identification of your repositories and then type in

sudo apt update; sudo dist-upgrade

And see what happens. You’ll almost certainly have some things to update or correct and that’s why the first approach is better. However if you are good at it and capable of understanding and correcting potentially large messes, by all means, experiment. I forewarm you to have a backup or something else. You may end up starting over or you just might get a break.

Backing up FIRST is essential in case it’s a COMPLETE flop!

Seriously the first approach is much safer!

Thanks Brian! I understand that the developers have so far failed to implement an upgradeable system. I’ll stick with MX then for a while.

[Member Xunzi_23]

Helpful

Up

1

::

Reading

I understand that the developers have so far failed to implement an upgradable system.

Ahem. The system is upgradable, it is as Mr Masinick says just not trivial.

In a newer version many configuration files change, a lot of them in the users home area.

If the user is patient, prepared to learn or has a good knowledge of the debian way he
can safely update, even to latest sid as I did on a laptop a few days ago.

The caution applies to mothership debian, antiX and MX which just happens to be based on
debian antiX. All have stable release cycles which after long living on the wild side
with Arch and Arch based I consider very sensible.

No matter whether upgrading or otherwise, a Backup of anything important is essential…

• This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by Brian Masinick.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

Helpful

Up

0

::

The MX devs do not advise dist-upgrading from 19 series to 21.
If the original poster can be bothered, they will find a how to dist-upgrade antiX-19 to antiX-21.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

1

::

anticapitalista wrote:

The MX devs do not advise dist-upgrading from 19 series to 21.
If the original poster can be bothered, they will find a how to dist-upgrade antiX-19 to antiX-21.

Yes, that’s a very clear and easy to follow set of instructions. I remember doing it both ways. I upgraded following the instructions, which went well. I didn’t have many changes to make because I had already changed from oldstable to stable.

I also try all of the ISO images to test them and they’re always good.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member jeffmernier]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I did the totally crazy thing but the kernel was not updated, still on 19.4.

apt update; apt dist-upgrade
Hit:1 http://security.debian.org bullseye-security InRelease
Hit:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates InRelease
Hit:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian bullseye InRelease                          
Hit:4 https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/mxlinux/antix/bullseye bullseye InRelease
Reading package lists... Done                               
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

root@dhcppc7:/home/brad# uname -a
Linux dhcppc7 4.19.184-antix.1-amd64-smp #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 1 19:25:13 EEST 2021 x86_64 GNU/Linux

• This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by jeffmernier.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by jeffmernier.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by jeffmernier.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

1

::

Quote: “I did the totally crazy thing but the kernel was not updated, still on 19.4.”

Unless you physically install and replace the previous contents with an image with a different version number,
the version number will remain the same. Changing the repositories to the current release (for 22, it’s “stable”, for 23 Alpha it’s Bookworm),
these will get you to a functionally equivalent image using your approach, so yours is currently equivalent to Version 22.
If you change the name from Bullseye to Stable, when Version 23 is released and Debian 12 is released, these will match too, equivalent to Bookworm.

--
Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

1

::

Since the change is physically equivalent to antiX 22, if you know where the identifiers are located, it’s possible to change them.
Because they read 19.4, we can tell that your upgrade, as you stated, was performed by changing the repo names and performing an upgrade.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member Robin]

Helpful

Up

1

::

jeffmernier wrote:

but the kernel was not updated, still on 19.4.

jeffmernier wrote:

4.19.184-antix.1-amd64-smp

4.19.184-antix.1-amd64-smp ← → antiX 19.4

Even when the kernel version reads a bit similar to the antiX version number in your example, these are not the same.

You can always update the kernel separately, in each antiX version. So you could use a 4.19 kernel in antiX 23 as well as a 5.10 kernel in antiX 19.4

To update the kernel enter:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-cache search linux-image | grep antix | grep amd64
sudo apt-cache search linux-headers | grep antix | grep amd64

Select the kernel package of the version you like, matching your architecture.
Then install it along with its headers, e.g. for the 5.10.142 kernel the command would read:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-5.10.142-antix.2-amd64-smp linux-image-5.10.142-antix.2-amd64-smp

(Make sure to install the matching header version for the kernel you have chosen always)

Reboot.

(Only on live systems and frugal installations: do a live remaster from antiX control center before rebooting, and after reboot do a live kernel updater, reboot again, then the live system will boot into new kernel)

After this your uname -r will display the new kernel name.

Btw, you can check also using the command

lsb_release -a

to see what system base you run on recently after your dist-upgrade

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member jeffmernier]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I changed bullseye to stable:

apt update; apt upgrade
Hit:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable-updates InRelease                   
Hit:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable InRelease                            
Hit:3 http://security.debian.org stable-security InRelease                        
Hit:4 https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/mxlinux/antix/bullseye bullseye InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

Helpful

Up

0

::

jeffmernier wrote:

I changed bullseye to stable:

Why?

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

1

::

Right now having the value set to Stable will give you the current stable releases, which are at Bullseye.
When Stable changes, so will the name it points to. If you want this to take place automatically
that’s the “crazy” way to do it. Naturally you’ll want to be well aware of the change;
When I do “crazy” things like this, I generally hold off updates just before and after the release
change. This gives the repositories time to change, then update. If you do the same, you can reasonably
expect it to work. Check the release notes to see if there are any other special tasks needed to support
the change, and you can actually do it. Neither Debian, MX Linux, or antiX recommend this method; as long
as you know what you’re doing, keep backups and are able to support unusual events yourself, it can be “fun”.

You clearly did it this time and had success. Best wishes.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member jeffmernier]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Thanks so much Gents! Kernel manually upgraded to 5.10.142-antix.2-amd64-smp as per Robin.

uname -r
5.10.142-antix.2-amd64-smpuname -r
5.10.142-antix.2-amd64-smp 

I changed <hostname> in /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts.
After reboot hostname is restored to dhcppc7. How to make this change permanent?

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by jeffmernier.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by jeffmernier.

[Member stevesr0]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi all,

This seems like a classic case of I want to do X (“dist-upgrade”), actually wanting to do Y (install a different kernel).

Glad Robin told him how to do what he actually wanted to do <g>.

stevesr0

[Author]

Posts