Upgrading from antix 19 to antix 21?

[Member lgj100]

Hi Everyone,

I have two computers running antix, one antix 21 beta, and another running antix 19. I would like to upgrade both to antix 21.

(1) How do I upgrade from antix 19 to 21 without doing a new install?

(2) Will the antix 21 beta automatically upgrade to the antix 21 when I do apt upgrade?

Sincerely,
Lars.

[Anonymous]

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hi lgj100, on the #2 no not usually on an alpha or beta doing a clean upgrade. there
are threads on the forum for upgrading from one version to another for stable.

[Member lgj100]

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Is this really true, that the antiX-21 beta version won’t update to the official release when I do apt upgrade? Can one of the developers confirm that. Because otherwise I’ll have to reinstall.

Sincerely,
Lars.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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If you want the reported version to show up as antiX 21 you either have to install Version 21 or manually modify the files containing version information. I’ve done both at one time or another.

Frankly the fastest and simplest way to get antiX 21 is to obtain an image and install it, unless you have a very slow network.

In the past various companies have produced CD, DVD and USB media that they sell for a modest profit. This is another reasonable approach if you can afford it; recent versions have been available on USB media.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator christophe]

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Hi lgj100.

Take a look at these previous threads:

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/antix-21-grup-yorum-released/page/3/#post-70311
(Regarding the 21-beta-to-21-final.)

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/whats-the-step-by-step-guide-to-upgrading-with-antix-21-live-usb/#post-71425
(Regarding 19-to-21; also a bit on reinstalling but keeping an already-configured /home partition — potentially useful for either/both of your situations.)

HTH

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by christophe.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by christophe.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member stevesr0]

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Presumably, a motive to upgrade rather than do a fresh install is to keep all the data files one has added. I just installed antiX-21 as a live USB – it was painless and after I have played with it a bit, I expect to install to the hard drive on which my current antiX-17 install lives.

I plan to copy all the data files I want to keep to a usb drive and then copy them back to my home directory after the install of antiX-21 has taken over the space currently used by antiX-17. Since I also have windows installed on this machine in a separate partition, I will obviously have to tell the installer what partitions to use.

I would appreciate any advice about pitfalls to this and suggestions of posts to study. In my current antiX-17 install, I created both a root partition, a home partition and a swap partition. I understand that many just use one partition for all the directories (obviously with separate /root and /home directories) and a swap file instead of a /swap partition.

(While I can – and will look up the ways to do this with the pros and cons of different ways – I figured that this might be something valuable for many noobies who are upgrading from 19 to 21 (and old noobies who might be upgrading from 17 such as me)).

stevesr0

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@stevesr0: good idea to copy files to an external device and copy them back after installation.

Regarding the separation of various directories that can be useful for a server or a system of many people. On a single user system it’s unlikely to provide much benefit and it adds complexity, an unnecessary complication in my opinion.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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I’ve been using this method since antiX 17. I created a packagecomp utility to do a lot of the work. I have a lot of things customized, and my system is setup the way I like it, functionally, and usually I want to preserve my customizations unless the never version has improvements to those same areas that I like better. It takes testing the new version to sort out what I want to carry over from my old system.

I backup my old root and /home system using live-usb-maker in personal mode onto a flashdrive.

I install a package called Aptik and Aptik-GTK to makes the backup and restore process for my /home directory easy, space efficient, and reliable, then I run it under root to make a /home backup.

I create a separate partition with gparted and install the new system to that separate partition.

I make a list of packages from my old system and compare it to the list of packages on the new system, and decide which I need to add.

I add the missing packages including Aptik and Aptik-GTK on the new system.

I make a backup copy of the clean /home directory on the new system to refer to in case my /home restore causes problems,

I restore the /home directory backup to the new system with Aptik-GTK under root. When I think its all correct, I reboot into the new system.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by BobC. Reason: added .zip file of the utility I use

Attachments:

1. packagecomp-20200318.zip

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I do a similar thing but I have my own ways; usually I multi-boot so I have my environment on an adjacent partition. One or two cp -R commands and possibly a mount or two and I’m done; seldom exceeds even five minutes unless I am doing something else at the same time!

Usually 1-2 minutes is the max!

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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Brian,

Could you explain what your cp -R commands are and what they copy vs don’t copy? I suspect these commands are doing the equivalent of the backup and restore commands I use.

I wonder if there would be a way to copy the old one to a compressed .zip file (maybe on a flash drive), and then restore that over top of the new /home?, thus creating an efficient backup of /home at point of migration at the same time?

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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cp -R means that you can copy all files and directories from the source to the destination so what I often do is name a few hidden files, such as . profile, .bash* and .Mozilla plus bin, Documents and any private browser directories, then name the target, typically /mnt/home/Masinick. previously mounted to the desired target.

If I am doing it for multiple targets I umount /mnt, remount it to another target and repeat, so even doing it for multiple target partitions only requires unmounting and remounting /many and recalling the previous cp commands. Even without a pre-written script this is faster than explaining it in words! (I could probably do 2-3 such operations between writing paragraphs of explanation).

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Brian Masinick

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi BobC and Brian Masinick,

Thanks for each of your posts. Gives me much to chew on. I presume others will also get something useful from them.

stevesr0

[Member blur13]

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If the system is a laptop and you have used Connman to connect to lots of wifi networks copying the directory /var/lib/connman to the new install will save you a lot of time retyping/finding passwords.

[Member stevesr0]

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Thanks, blur13.

[Member roland]

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Back in the days of release 13 a fresh install cost you a lot of work to recreate the usual customisations and the $home directory, but now with preservable $home they can be easily and quickly recreated, often giving the chance to rethink them. I never let a new release wait long, I install it in one of my PCs and when sorted after perhaps a few months, migrate the rest to it. Perhaps what I still miss is a way to carry browser bookmarks forwards easily to the new install.

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