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Autonom

Member

Registered: 2022-04-05

Posts: 5  

[SOLVED] Questions about upgrading Refracta.

Greetings and salutations to Everyone. I am new on that forum and this is My first post. Apologeise for My non-ideal english, I am not native english speaker. But to the point. My questions concerns ,,Devuan" derivative which is called ,,Refracta". If I am not wrong, ,,Refracta" is based on ,,Devuan" repositories, so when I do distro-upgrade to new version from that repositories ,,Refracta" probably change to ,,Devuan" and something will be wrong in the system. My questions is: Can i do distro-upgrade from ISO file? Can I update packages, then turned off repositories and set up ISO file as only source for distro-upgrade? Does the ISO file of ,,Refracta" is a ISO that type and allows to do that? Does ,,apt" allows to do that? I want to know how can I upgrade ,,Refracta" without doing a reinstalation. I hope someone could answer on My questions, especially Mr. ,,fsmithred".

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,500  

Re: [SOLVED] Questions about upgrading Refracta.

I'm not sure I understand what you want to do. Maybe you think it's more complicated than it is.
Change "beowulf" to "chimaera" in sources.list, then 'apt upgrade' and 'apt dist-upgrade' the same as you would with pure devuan. You do not need to reinstall.

sed -i 's/beowulf/chimaera'/g /etc/apt/sources.list
apt update
apt upgrade
apt dist-upgrade

You will be asked about some config files that have been changed. Say 'yes' to take the new versions of the config files.

Autonom

Member

Registered: 2022-04-05

Posts: 5  

Re: [SOLVED] Questions about upgrading Refracta.

Thank you for Your help. Are You sure that every package included in ,,Refracta" is in ,,Devuan" repositories? If not, that packages wont be upgraded in that way as You described. Another thing is that ,,Refracta" is not only a customized ISO of ,,Devuan", but different distribution with different name, different numbering(numers of versions are the same as in ,,Debian"). I read instruction about migrating from ,,Debian" to ,,Devuan" in documentation of the second I mention above. Apart from changing the initialization system, there are instructions for change repositories from ,,Debian" to ,,Devuan" repos and I read there that after that change and do distro-upgrade the distribution will be change to ,,Devuan". That is why I ask about that. Does after I do normal upgrade from repositories, according to Your instructions, ,,Refracta" will not change to ,,Devuan"(name, numer of version)?

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,500  

Re: [SOLVED] Questions about upgrading Refracta.

Refracta uses only Devuan repositories. Refracta IS Devuan, just with a different name and some different configurations. Your boot menu might say Devuan after the upgrade. You can change that in /etc/default/grub if you want.

Use upgrade instructions for Devuan. Do not use instructions for migration from Debian.

Refracta tracks Debian version numbers because it started out as a Debian re-spin with Debian Lenny (5). It was switched to Devuan with Jessie, and it didn't make sense to go from version 7 to version 1.

Ah, I did just think of one package that isn't in the repo. refracta2usb. The newest version of that is here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/refrac … -2.4.3.deb
It will work with beowulf, chimaera, and probably daedalus, too.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,500  

Re: [SOLVED] Questions about upgrading Refracta.

Do this first!

apt install wicd

It's a transitional metapackage that will pull in network-manager-gnome during the upgrade.

If you would rather have connman instead of network-manager-gnome, install connman before the upgrade.

Without that you will be left without network. If you get stuck without network, run

dhclient eth0

to get a connection.

Autonom

Member

Registered: 2022-04-05

Posts: 5  

Re: [SOLVED] Questions about upgrading Refracta.

I don't want to use instructions for upgrading ,,Debian" to ,,Devuan". I just want to know details about the differences between ,,Refracta" and ,,Devuan" and how to upgrade ,,Refracta" from ,,Devuan" repositories. You explained Me everything I want to know. Once more thank You for help.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,500  

Re: [SOLVED] Questions about upgrading Refracta.

I did an upgrade of refracta 10 (beowulf) to 11 (chimaera) recently and took notes. Here it is in more detail and with some configs that are specific to refracta.

sed -i 's/beowulf/chimaera/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
apt update
apt upgrade

Allow services to restart automatically.

Config files. Take defaults yes/no as indicated below.
/etc/issue            No, keep old version and edit to change 10 to 11.
/etc/pam.d/login    Yes, install new version
/etc/sysctl.conf    No, keep old version.  (kernel.sysrq=1)
/etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf        Yes, install new version. (edit to set COMPRESSION=xz)
/etc/ssh/sshd_config    take new
/etc/cryptsetup-initramfs/conf-hook        take new
/etc/lvm/lvm.conf    take new    (edit udev_sync=0 udev_rules=0 to fix boot delay)

optional:
/etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume        (RESUME=none)

reboot
apt dist-upgrade

apt will then warn about xscreensaver or xlockmore.
As user, in another terminal run:  pkill xscreensaver
Then press ENTER to proceed in the root terminal. (not any key as it says.)

apt autoremove
reboot

Note: did not get wicd transitional package.
If you get stuck without network, run:

  dhclient eth0
  apt install wicd

(it will install network-manager-gnome)

To avoid that problem, install wicd (the metapackage) before the upgrade.