[SOLVED] upgrading system

stevestark · 2010-08-24 04:59:23

i installed the 2008.3 by mounting the iso. the 2009 and 2010.5 and .8 iso images i cound not install because of kernel errors. i cant boot from cd or usb so the 2008.3 was my only option. now i need to upgrade my system to current. now to i do so. note that i removed my pacman cache. should i have done this?

i was from ubuntu 9.10 and viewed the grub2 menu.lst file. in there my windows partition was set to (hd1,0). in this 2008.3 install, the grub file is set also to (hd1,0) yet it does not boot windows. if i ran pacman -S grub2, would it be safe to do. I am not sure because grub1 is already installed and grub2 might copy over grub2. if i installed grub2 would it be the default?

Last edited by stevestark (2010-08-26 02:51:40)

sand_man · 2010-08-24 06:00:05

Ummm..... What?

Can you start from the beginning and try to explain in detail what you are trying to do?

'pacman -Syu' will upgrade the system.
I don't know what you are trying to do by mounting the 2008.3 iso and if you are getting some kind of kernel errors, please post what they are.

edit:
By the way, grub2 and grub have different syntax in how it represents hard drive and partition numbers.

Device names have changed. In GRUB Legacy, the numbering of both hard drives and partitions start at zero. (hd0,0) is the first hard drive (hd0), the first partition (partition zero). In GRUB 2, the numbering of hard drives also starts at zero: hd0 is the first hard drive. But partition numbering starts at 1: (hd0,1) is the first hard drive, the first partition (partition one).

Last edited by sand_man (2010-08-24 06:02:29)

karol · 2010-08-24 10:56:51

@ stevestark
*Don't* create topics like 'upgrading system' where you discuss several problems. It's better to split it between several posts.

Installing grub2 should make your Windows partition bootable.

hokasch · 2010-08-24 11:25:56

i installed the 2008.3 by mounting the iso. the 2009 and 2010.5 and .8 iso images i cound not install because of kernel errors.

sidestepping critical errors like this is not a good idea - updating a 2 1/2 year old system most likely is not going to be smooth, and besides if you really have a problem with a regression in recent kernels, you will be back on square one after the update....

i cant boot from cd or usb so the 2008.3 was my only option.

How do you mean?

Inxsible · 2010-08-24 13:29:47

hokasch wrote:

i cant boot from cd or usb so the 2008.3 was my only option.
How do you mean?

@OP Yes how do you mean exactly? If you can't boot from CD and USB how the hell did 2008 CD work for you?

.:B:. · 2010-08-24 15:25:36

I still need to use an old FTP image here as well, if I boot from USB stick with the more recent images it will break. So that part of his story isn't as improbable as it seems.

hokasch · 2010-08-24 15:34:56

Sometimes archboot images work in those cases where the officials won't, for whatever reasons.

i cant boot from cd or usb

ah maybe I understand now - did you load the image from hd, and got an error with the newer images? that would not necessarily be a problem with the kernel, but with the images' boot setup. If you have grub already installed, you can point it to kernel & initrd from an archboot image and boot the install environment, pretty painless and works great (yea I know I should add this to the wiki already...).

Inxsible · 2010-08-24 16:00:25

.:B:. wrote:

I still need to use an old FTP image here as well, if I boot from USB stick with the more recent images it will break. So that part of his story isn't as improbable as it seems.

Then that must be machine dependent. I have not seen at on either of my machines however.
when the op said he can't boot from CD or usb -- I took it to mean that he doesnt have a cd drive and his bios doesnt support booting from usb. So I didn't know how he used 2008 CD to boot.

stevestark · 2010-08-24 22:04:13

Inxsible wrote:

hokasch wrote:
i cant boot from cd or usb so the 2008.3 was my only option.
How do you mean?
@OP Yes how do you mean exactly? If you can't boot from CD and USB how the hell did 2008 CD work for you?

the 2008 was a ftp iso and worked. i used unetbootin to boot the kernel image. the errors for the other iso were unable to mount rootfs on unknown block and unpacking initranfs just hanged there.

what i am trying to do not is install grub2 so that the windows partition works at bootup and to upgrade the arch system.

hokasch · 2010-08-24 22:11:37

You can boot windows fine with grub1, this should be a configuration issue - see the hint by sand_man and the wiki. Of course you can as well install grub2 (it will replace the current grub). And of course you may also just try an upgrade, but be prepared for breakage/manual interventions. I would still prefer booting a recent installer for convenience though, as described in my previous post.

edit: wait, if you used an ftp iso, your system should be up-to-date anyway - what is the problem with the upgrade?

Last edited by hokasch (2010-08-24 22:13:14)

stevestark · 2010-08-24 22:46:55

i booted the 2008 ftp image by unetbootin. i mounted the iso image and did a src becuase i could not connect with ftp. now if i had instructions on how to get my network working, i could do an ftp.

at the 2008 prompt, i did the following...
mkdir /temp1
mount /dev/sdb1 /temp1
mount -o loop /temp1/archlinux.iso /src
then ran /arch/setup

from there, i seleted /src as the media. by ftp, it detected the network card but i got an error downloading any media.

Do i ready need to do a system upgrade. all i need to do now is install xfce4 and a web browser or would new software not work because of old kernel issue by othen option would be to get the network card working in 2008 iso

sand_man my second partition is (hd1,0) which should work but does not in grub1. it begins to boot and then hangs. i tired (hd1,1) and (hd1,4) and still nothing but an error.

Last edited by stevestark (2010-08-24 22:49:03)

hokasch · 2010-08-25 15:09:05

stevestark, consider to try a distro with a less steep learning curve. I somehow doubt you will be happy with arch, as it requires quite a lot of self-education and the willingness to tinker around for yourself with the available documentation.

so, I reckon you used the 2008 ftp iso to boot, and then mounted the 2008 core iso to get hold of the packages?

Do i ready need to do a system upgrade

look at how arch works. it is rolling release, you need to have a updated system to install stuff. As you have a really outdated system, updating has its caveats (your other thread). You can resolve them, these problems should be well documented in the forums. search for them, or look at the answers in the linked thread. Not sure if I have mentioned an alternative way to get a recent image to boot from hd already

sand_man my second partition is (hd1,0) which should work but does not in grub1. it begins to boot and then hangs. i tired (hd1,1) and (hd1,4) and still nothing but an error.

have you read sandman's post? he pointed out the syntax change from grub legacy to grub2... so hd(1,0) in grub2 is another drive than hd(1,0) in grub legacy. Again, more info about dualboot is in the wiki.

edit: sorry, it should be "grub2 hd(1,1) equals grub legacy hd(1,0)", and you said ubuntus grub2 was set to hd(1,0)? now I can't make sense of the syntax anymore either. gosh, what did they think making those changes.

Last edited by hokasch (2010-08-25 15:15:45)

stevestark · 2010-08-26 02:07:06

hokasch wrote:

stevestark, consider to try a distro with a less steep learning curve. I somehow doubt you will be happy with arch, as it requires quite a lot of self-education and the willingness to tinker around for yourself with the available documentation.
so, I reckon you used the 2008 ftp iso to boot, and then mounted the 2008 core iso to get hold of the packages?

thank you for the post hokasch. i am aware of the steep learning curve. i use to have archlinux about 5 years ago and everything worked good. now i am back to try again. i like it as in fast to boot and some what easy to do. most importantly, i can solve most of my problems here at the forum. i find that most here are educated in arch and can help a lot.

yes i mounted the core and did src for the packages.

[solved]

Last edited by stevestark (2010-08-26 02:55:11)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-24 04:59:23

[SOLVED] upgrading system

#2 2010-08-24 06:00:05

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#3 2010-08-24 10:56:51

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#4 2010-08-24 11:25:56

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#5 2010-08-24 13:29:47

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#6 2010-08-24 15:25:36

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#7 2010-08-24 15:34:56

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#8 2010-08-24 16:00:25

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#9 2010-08-24 22:04:13

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#10 2010-08-24 22:11:37

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#11 2010-08-24 22:46:55

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#12 2010-08-25 15:09:05

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

#13 2010-08-26 02:07:06

Re: [SOLVED] upgrading system

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