How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

csolisr · 2012-06-10 18:02:32

A few months ago, an acquaintance of mine convinced me to switch from Ubuntu to Parabola GNU/Linux-Libre. I've been using it (i.e. using only free-as-in-freedom programs, drivers, etc.) for the last six months, but now I'm starting to want to switch back to Arch. Of course I won't find a guide to switch from Parabola to Arch, so I want to ask you how to "reverse" the guide at https://wiki.parabolagnulinux.org/Migration_From_Arch. As far as I'm concerned, the procedure is as follows:

- Switch from Parabola's mirrorlist to the Arch's one
- Remove the [libre] repository
- Update the Pacman's database
- Remove the programs from the [libre] repository and replace them with its usual versions
- Reconfigure GRUB (for the record, I have a separate /boot partition and I'm currently using GRUB 2)

However, I'm unsure on how to do several of the above steps (or even if that's the correct order). Can someone help me to figure it out?

quasifilmie · 2012-06-10 18:18:52

You should post your pacman.conf. Also backup your pacman config files. What you want to do is get the pacman-mirrorlist package and also you want to replace your current pacman.conf of Parabola with the Arch one. Then I would do pacman -Syu. Sort through any errors. (you could post them here too if you get stuck) Then I would do pacman -Qm. If you don't use arch user repository I would do pacman -Qm | grep libre and replace those libre packages with the default arch ones. The only way I know of doing this would be manually. So for example, you would replace linux-libre with linux and update your bootloader's config accordingly and you would replace file-roller-libre with file-roller. In case you didn't know pacman -Qm shows the list of packages that no longer belong to any repository listed in your pacman.conf. | grep libre will show with the pacman command the list of packages unique to parabola. The best and safest thing to do is replace all the libre packages with the default arch ones your system stays up to date in the future and you don't get breakage. If you want to keep some of the libre packages, you would probably want to keep the parabola repos with the arch ones but that gets more complicated.

Last edited by quasifilmie (2012-06-10 18:21:23)

csolisr · 2012-06-10 18:27:37

Here goes my pacman.conf sans the comments:

[options]
HoldPkg     = pacman glibc
SyncFirst   = pacman
Architecture = auto
CheckSpace
SigLevel = Never

# REPOSITORIES

[libre]
#SigLevel = PackageRequired
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[core]
#SigLevel = PackageRequired
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[extra]
#SigLevel = PackageOptional
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[community]
#SigLevel = PackageOptional
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[multilib]
#SigLevel = PackageOptional
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Also, how do I get the original Arch's pacman-mirrorlist? Something like pacman -U https://repo.archlinux.org/core/os/i686 … pkg.tar.gz ? (Of course, repo.archlinux.org does not exist and I don't know where to find the repo either)

Pierre · 2012-06-10 18:59:47

You can easily create a new mirrorlist here: https://www.archlinux.org/mirrorlist/

However, this still looks like a pretty bad idea. You are better off re-installing. Parabolla seems to be an Arch fork and packages are probably not compatible.

litemotiv · 2012-06-10 18:59:55

csolisr wrote:

Also, how do I get the original Arch's pacman-mirrorlist? Something like pacman -U https://repo.archlinux.org/core/os/i686 … pkg.tar.gz ? (Of course, repo.archlinux.org does not exist and I don't know where to find the repo either)

http://www.archlinux.org/packages/

On the top of your screen.

quasifilmie · 2012-06-10 20:42:36

Pierre wrote:

However, this still looks like a pretty bad idea. You are better off re-installing. Parabolla seems to be an Arch fork and packages are probably not compatible.

Pierre, I am almost certain that they are the same packages as in arch except the ones with the libre suffix. So I don't think it is a fork. It even shows you and the other devs as the maintainers for many of the non-libre packages. I think what they do is move the packages you guys package into their own repos and only rebuild certains ones such as linux and file-roller to make them "libre"; hence the suffix.

medianmajik · 2012-06-11 19:11:08

quasifilmie wrote:

Pierre wrote:
However, this still looks like a pretty bad idea. You are better off re-installing. Parabolla seems to be an Arch fork and packages are probably not compatible.
I think what they do is move the packages you guys package into their own repos and only rebuild certains ones such as linux and file-roller to make them "libre"; hence the suffix.

"Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, a project aiming to provide a fully free as in freedom Archlinux... we provide the official libre packages from Arch, plus our own libre replacements when necessary..."

cfr · 2012-06-12 00:31:07

With that config, pacman is going to want to update pacman on its own first, correct? How well will that work? (The config suggests an older version of pacman...?)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-10 18:02:32

How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

#2 2012-06-10 18:18:52

Re: How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

#3 2012-06-10 18:27:37

Re: How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

#4 2012-06-10 18:59:47

Re: How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

#5 2012-06-10 18:59:55

Re: How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

#6 2012-06-10 20:42:36

Re: How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

#7 2012-06-11 19:11:08

Re: How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

#8 2012-06-12 00:31:07

Re: How to migrate from Parabola to Arch?

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