Upgrade from 19.3 to 21

[Member Ernie]

Hi All,

I am new with antiX. And I am happy as I can use always my Dell Latitude X300.

I am running this X300 with antiX 19.3.

How can I upgrade to 21 version ?

From scratch ? I would like to avoid as I can’t boot on USB and the CDROM reader is not working (via the dock).

Or do need to use apt command and before I had to modify the sources ? How (which file must be modify and with which contents ?) ?

I am noob on antiX so thanks for clear explanation or existing “How to”.

Thanks for your advice

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Just reading material
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/upgrading-from-mx-19-to-mx-21-without-reinstalling/

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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On my older gear. PLOP suffices for usb boot on my bios that does not handle boot from usb.
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagers.html

Then do a reinstall with 21 ande preserve /home when asked.

Don’t forget

sudo apt update

sudo apt dist-upgrade

after a reinstall.

Edit: If you have a floppy drive that can boot from bios. PLOP will fit on floppy disk. You can also install PLOP bios utility to hard drive if wanting to keep it handy.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by rokytnji.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Moderator BobC]

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I would definitely favor a method that allows you to do the normal install somehow. Otherwise you could end up in a mess you can’t find your way out of.

I did upgrade a fresh 19.x to 21a or 21b at some point, but it was quite an excercise. Would a noobi survive it?

I did see this thread. There are no guarantees doing things on your own like this. Things might not wind up exactly correct and that might cause problems others don’t have:
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/upgare-anix19-to-anix21-without-reinstalling/

PS: I also used PLOP years ago from a floppy…

[Member Ernie]

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Thanks. I will look at Plop for booting from USB.
BR

[Member wb8tyw]

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I should read more carefully.

I followed the wiki with out noticing that it was for MX-19 to MX-21 before I realized that it was not for anit-x.

The problem with a reinstall with preserve home is that I still lose my additionally installed applications and their settings in /etc.

The result after doing the dist upgrade and also repairing broken installs is that I have a system that appears upgraded to 21 with only a few things reporting that it is still Anti-X 19 that I do not know how to change.

I did get the /etc/lsb-release and /etc/antix-version edited, as I could not find a package that claimed to provide them.

Most of my configuration is controlled by ansible and and all my critical stuff for /home is actually on another server that this is automounted by this system, so in theory I should be able to do a clean install, run an ansible playbook and I should be running.

I just was hoping an in-place upgrade to would be faster and less hassles than setting up the system again.
Next time I will try an install and hopefully my ansible playbook is up to date.

Long term I plan to setup a PXE-BOOT server, and then I will make sure that I can do backup, then a re-image and restore.

[Moderator BobC]

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Setting up antiX 21 is a 15 minute task on my machine. Just thinking aloud. I used my packagecomp utility, but it can be tricky trying to decide what should be reinstalled vs not. Here is a generic sequence of steps. But I don’t know your system or its mods.

1. Backup any program or configuration mods, make a list of programs that you need to reinstall
2. Backup /home
3. Create a new volume for antiX 21
4. Create a new volume for /home
5. Use Gparted to copy old /home to new /home
6. Boot from USB
7. Install antiX 21 to the new volume
7a. When setting up the disk, remember to make the new /home set for PRESERVE
8. Reboot into the new system
9. Install missing programs, redo all program and configuration mods
10. Reboot into the new system. All should be good, now
11. If not good, reboot into the old system which was left alone, learn from problems encountered, and try migration again when resolved.

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