Upgrade problems

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Upgrade problems
started by: richardcoop

Posted by richardcoop on June 21 2006,02:25

I need help in upgrading from a frugal install of 2.4 to 3.0. I am just learning so any help would be appreciated.

I downloaded the iso to my hard disk then tried to mount the iso to a directory I created (/mnt/dsl-iso) and get the error message "not a block device (maybe try -o -loop). I tried that and got the same message again. My plan was to extract the Knoppix directory and do a frugal upgrade install.

Am I on the right track? Where am I going wrong?
This laptop has no cdrom or usb port so I can't mess up my existing instillation or I am in real trouble.

Thanks for the help!
Richard Cooper

Posted by kerry on June 21 2006,03:01

I'd say hold off for now. I noticed a few bugs that you might not want to deal with.

Posted by richardcoop on June 25 2006,22:39

How do I upgrade a frugal installation with a downloaded iso but no cd rom or usb?

I would like to try to take advantage of unionfs to be able to run more apps with my limited ram (49 mb) using the new version.

Please help.

Thanks,

Posted by kerry on June 26 2006,00:48

unionfs is still work in progress and not meant for a everyday machine right now.

To upgrade frugal replace the knoppix with the one from the iso.

P.S. it will mess up your exsiting install and you will proably have to start over from scratch, should you not like the current state of unionfs.

Posted by roberts on June 26 2006,04:15

I beg to differ with the advice not to upgrade.
Some of us do use unionfs everyday.

Then some claim that their /tmp is mounted and do not provide any other information.

Besides the 3.0.1 version does not even boot to unionfs!
And a conscience decision must be made to select unionfs as a boot option.

And there will always be those who will choose to stay behind.

I would not let disparaging remarks keep me from recommending anyone ...

To upgrade:

You cannot swap out the KNOPPIX image that you would be currently running from. However, you should be able to boot frugal toram then do a frugal install and one of the choices is from [F]ile. That file being the iso that you downloaded. Don't forget to update the emelfm changes as documented in the RC thread.

Posted by richardcoop on June 26 2006,04:20

Ok, I'll wait untill the unionfs questions are resolved. I tried to access the Knoppix directory in the iso using mount and failed, as I mentioned above.

What was I doing wrong?

Posted by richardcoop on June 26 2006,04:25

Oops, missed a message. I'll try the frugal to ram approach.

Sorry to get in the middle of a controversy.

Posted by roberts on June 26 2006,04:40

Let me emphatically state that there are no known reproducible issues that I am currently working in regards to unionfs in DSL classic.
There is a kown issue with the build of the buitin firefox that is being looked at.
Discourging users to upgrade only results in holding back the progress of DSL. I am most disappointed to have to write this.

Posted by kerry on June 26 2006,07:56

Sorry, I was wrong.

Yes, i do claim my /tmp is mounted. See pic's->
< http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/290/tmpmounted4su.png >
< http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/4479/tmp2mounted3pj.png >

and i have no problems reproducing it even in qemu, cause it does what i say it is doing. I'm glad it works perfectly for you, but there's no reason to treat me like i'm a liar because it dosen't do that for you.

Posted by roberts on June 26 2006,14:36

Ah, I get to learn what thou has been protesting about.

What you are proclaiming to the world as a bug so big as to not upgrade or even to consider to use v3.x, is not a bug at all!

I suggest that you re-read the 3.0RC2 thread to learn why.

It has nothing to do with unionfs. It does have to do with staying compatible with future versions of Knoppix and the ability to share extensions with DSL big brother.

As previously discussed some extensions are affected.
The change is quite trivial.

Posted by kerry on June 26 2006,17:55

The reason i told him to wait was because he said " I can't mess up my existing instillation or I am in real trouble. "

I have re-read 3.0rc2 and i still don't get it.

How come it work's for you and other's but not for me?

Anyways no big deal, i've learned to work around that by not using the /tmp folder at all, I still prefer using the legacy instead, as i don't get any problems with that. Letting this go and moving on. ;)

Posted by humpty on June 26 2006,22:24

the command you're looking for is

mount -o loop -t iso9660 <filename>.iso /mnt/dsl-iso

(p.s/ you cannot just replace the knoppix file because it may not match with the kernel. you have to replace all the other files too.)

[Edit: okay, my bad. It just so happens, the files are the same between these versions]

Posted by richardcoop on June 27 2006,01:53

Thanks for that info humpty. What I did is copy the Knoppix directory to my first FAT 32 partition, hda1, while I have frugal installed to hda2. I now can boot to the new release without disturbing my regular setup.

If I don't want to keep it, I can just erase (or rename) the knoppix directory by booting to MSDOS using a floppy.

Everything seems to going OK so far.

Posted by richardcoop on June 28 2006,03:35

An update: I installed version 3 to hda2 first booting using the extracted knoppix directory on hda1 then renaming the directory using msdos after it was used to upgrade.

I can now run abiword without running out of my small amount of memory, the goal of this exercise. Good job Robert!

BTW I could not use the frugal install toram approach as I didn't have enough memory to load the image.

Seems I used like an inelegant way to upgrade but it worked. Is there anyother way to upgrade these old, low memory, machines without depending on msdos that I missed?