Upgrading to PCQLinux 2004

Way up in the wish list of those who have been writing to us is an easy way of upgrading from previous versions of PCQLinux. PCQLinux 2004 provides an easy to use and fully
graphical upgrade option from PCQLinux 7.1 and 8.

Upgrading from PCQLinux 7.1

Upgrading from PCQLinux 7.1 to PCQLinux 2004 needs a small hack. This is because when Anaconda (the PCQLinux installer) searches for the previous version of Linux installed on the machine, it uses the data in /etc/redhat-release in the installed version and checks whether it has an entry of PCQLinux or not. If it finds the entry, it recognizes it as PCQLinux and continues the upgrade process. However, in PCQLinux 7.1 the entry is spelt PCQlinux and not PCQLinux. Anaconda refuses to play ball. Here is the work around.

Step 1: What you need to do is to open the /etc/redhat-release file and change PCQlinux to PCQLinux. Save the file and you will be ready to start with the upgrade process. This technique will also work if you want to upgrade RedHat or Fedora Core 1-based distros to PCQLinux 2004!

Step 2: Place the first PCQLinux 2004 CD in your CD/DVD drive and restart your machine with the CD drive as the first bootable media. Continue the installation until it shows up a screen in which you have two selections: ‘Upgrade an Existing Installation’ and ‘Install PCQLinux’. Here, select the ‘Upgrade an Existing Installation’ (this should detect the previous version) option and click the Next button. 

Step 3: Now, you will be asked whether you want to migrate the existing ext2 file systems to ext3 journaling file system or not. You can select which partitions to migrate. It is recommended that you migrate all your partitions. 

After selecting the partitions that you need to migrate, just hit the Next button to get to the next screen

Choosing the ‘Upgrade an Existing Installation’ detects any previous installed version of PCQLinux  You can select the partitions that you want to migrate to PCQLinux 2004. We recommend that you migrate all your partitions We recommend that you migrate from LiLo to Grub

Step 4: You will now be asked you whether you want to upgrade your boot loader or not. Here, you will be presented with three options: ‘Upgrade Boot Loader Configurations’, ‘Skip Boot Loader Updating’ and ‘Create Boot Loader Configuration’. If you select the first option, it will just upgrade your LiLo. The second option will do nothing, except start a fresh installation. And if you want to migrate from LiLo to Grub you have to select the third option. Our recommendation is to opt for Grub.

From here just follow the normal installation steps and your machine will be upgraded to the latest, PCQLinux 2004.

Upgrading from PCQLinux 8.0

This is much easier and simpler than upgrading from PCQLinux 7.1. The process to upgrade to PCQLinux 2004 was designed keeping in mind that most of you will be upgrading from PCQLinux 8.0. The steps are exactly the same as in PCQLinux 7.1, except that you don’t have to hack the ‘redhat-release’ file. Just place the PCQLinux CD 1 in your drive, boot with it and follow the steps from Step 2 onwards as described above. Here Step 3 is optional and will be required only if you had specifically chosen ext2 format at the time of PCQLinux 8.0 installation (default is ext3). All other steps are the same as upgrading from PCQLinux 7.1. 

Recovering PCQLinux 2004

You can use the Upgrade wizard to recover your  PCQLinux 2004 installation if something goes wrong, such as a corrupted boot loader. The steps for recovering PCQLinux 2004 are the same as described above. The Upgrade wizard will automatically detect the older PCQLinux 2004 installation and will ask you whether to modify the boot loader or packages, etc.

Anindya Roy