User Feedback :: Upgrade from 3.4 to 4.1



At the boot splash type "base norestore" (or maybe "dsl base norestore").

This will take you to the bare-bones dsl-4.x without loading any mydsl extensions and without restoring anything in your backup. You should then be able to see what dsl-4.x looks like and decide if you prefer it to dsl-3.x
It is dsl base norestore

You can then selectively copy your personal data from the old backup.tar.gz.

Using emelfm first rename your backup.tar.gz so that it does not get overwritten.

Then double click on this renamed file. Emelfm will unpack its contents to /tmp/.emelfm-unpack/ directory. Continue with emelfm to navigate and selectively copy files to their respective locations on the new system.

Greetings

I did the DSL norestore boot and the  opened the backup.tar.gz and copied .mozilla, .sylpheed, and mail folders.  Then rebooted.  It seems to all be working now!  I've got my email, filters and bookmarks etc.  

Also all the icons are there on the desktop and seem to be working right.  

Thanks
Quote (Glacial @ April 02 2008,17:18)
Argh!  My upgrade from 3.4 to 4.1 has been most frustrating.  If you plug in your USB drive and boot the 4.1 CD you end up at a blank screen with no icons at all!

In the end I had to go to an Ubunto machine and get the sylphid and firefox dir out of the backup tar and copy them to a new USB drive and start over.  I've now got my setting for both of those programs and the icons now show up on the desktop.  With a totally blank desktop 4.1 is a pain to try and use.

I really really miss the control box that used to live in the lower right corner for mounting my USB and HDisk partitions.  It was both a control and a visual feed back as to what was active.  some kind of visual mount status would be nice.

I could not figure out how to fix the clock to show the date; so ended up switching the WM just to get the date display back.  

So far, I just don't like it.  Ver 3.4 was much nicer to use.  So far I don't see anything added that's better.  It's just more frustration to do things now.

Sorry,

I couldn't agree more. I would install stuff from my dsl just have it disappear from the dsl menu upon reboot. that wasn't just uci apps its all apps. Then I couldn't get a resonable explanation as to how to add stuff to the menu so I gave up and went back to 3.4. So I think I will hang with 3.4 till another new version comes out.
I dunno, but mine was a pleasant upgrade from DSL 3.3 to DSL 4.4.8.

I remembered I've managed to upgrade without using a CDROM
drive in the past:

# mount -t iso9660  /mnt/sda3/dsl-4.4.8.iso  /mnt/test -o loop

After I acquired the .iso and copied it to the thumb drive, I did the
above to mount it.  Was able to grab KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX that
way, along with the kernel and mini-root filesystem, and put them
where they belong.  I pointed the grub record to the kernel and
mini-root.

The desktop came up without the fluxbox style 'envane' that I
had been using; was no problem finding envane's two required
files and restoring it to my local user directory.  I could have
made it available globally and may do so later.

My backup came up way short; it was obvious that ~/.filetool.lst
in /home/dsl wasn't being seen, so I took a look around and soon
discovered there was an expected (and, I think, new) location for
this file, in /opt -- and that there was a second similarly-named
file there, /opt/.xfiletool.lst.  One of the great ones here mentioned
this file is an exclude list, for things like the Cache for mozilla.

Since I always run my backups with:

$ mkdir ~/log-tmp.d
$ cd ~/log-tmp.d
$ script
$ su - dsl
$ sudo filetool.sh backup

I had no issues detecting something new was going on.  I of course
mounted /mnt/sda2 to copy the backup.tar.gz to a safe location (I keep
a dozen or so revisions of this file on hand, all named
YYMMddhh-backup.tar.gz).

I looked in /etc/skel and found lots of goodies there; made a local copy
(let's say to ~/.hidden/skel) and poked around to see what was new.

At some point I read the Changelog on the main DSL web page, and
saw what sorts of things I'd be looking for.  But that was after I'd
loaded Mozilla or Firefox and got 'bon echo' .. instead.  Then I went
to Mozilla web to see wtf bon echo was about.  Satisfied.  Meanwhile
most of what I had worked as always.

So for me it was the matter of installing the Envane style so fluxbox
could use it, copying /home/dsl/.filetool.lst to /opt, updating grub
(vim /boot/grub/menu.lst) and exploring how the new .xinitrc in
/etc/skel invokes new features.

Last night was spent migrating from ~/.xtdesktop to ~/.dfmdesk,
which was fun and actually addresses some of my recent wishes
to do a bit more with xtdesktop than I had found it capable of doing.

dfm good.

lynx, vim and iptables all loaded correctly; I haven't checked
extensions I don't use often.

I noticed the startup scripts want write-access to mydsl directory,
so I changed the ownership there to dsl:staff and that made the
bad error messages go away (shortcuts.lua line 76).  I generally
don't have any hard mounts by the time I login (/dev/sda2 gets
umount'ed somehow, the way I was doing things, so I added a
few lines in /opt/bootlocal.sh to make that happen at the right
time).  I want it so I can cycle power with nothing mounted.

$ cat /proc/cmdline

quiet root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=792 nopcmcia noacpi nodma noscsi
   fromhd=/dev/sda1 toram frugal restore=sda2 mydsl=sda2/mydsl/active
       host=tetoncahost tz=USA/Eastern

I played with checkfs boot option; it nicely checks filesystems just
as I'd do it and then reboots (that was a surprise, but not hardly).

I've backed up and restored several times.  Firewall works.  No
smoke coming out of the computer and I don't notice anything
scary.

I call that a good upgrade.

--- thank you --
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