Simply installing New Releases

[limotux]

Completely over. It will of course continue to run but no updates at all will come in henceforth.

As for rolling distros saving you the bother of not installing again, the time you save by not installing again is lost/spent in other things (ok, I exclude PCLinuxOS, Solus and Void from this as they normally need very little care during updates**):

Thank you @asqwerth for your detailed comment.
Well, honestly as I mentioned earlier, I have been on a rolling release for about a year now. (EndeavourOS to be specific)
I have been just getting updates as usual and upgrading from one release to the next just issuing the update command. To be honest I have made a fresh install only once because I simply bought a new laptop in place of my 10 year old laptop).

And to be honest and precise, the latest release they had some changes (like systemd-boot to be the default instead of grub) so just to be up to date I had to do some manual work.

Other than that it has been working flawlessly for about a year with just updating the system.

Now, I am trying to get a Live Persistent MX USB to start with. I really like how MX is really user friendly and that the Grub issue of breaking down can be fixed simply by booting from any USB and issuing a command to fix it.

I hope I get my Live Persistent MX USB disk working soon!

[fehlix]

UIP is not found in mx19 AFAIK, so users upgrading from 19 to 23 will have to use that script.

I didn't follow the development thread, so I don't know if that's because it uses features only available in MX 21 and up, or just hasn't been packaged for MX 19.

No idea. @fehlix ?

Will do an translation refresh together with an adjustment to have it also run on MX19, asap.

[Tomy]

Ich wollte heute MXLinux 21 installieren. Der reinste Fehlschlag! Baim Start des Live-Systems läuft die Überprüfung des Medienspeicher, und endet ohne Fehler festzustellen. Dann bei der Installation stellt er Fehler an der Partition fest, kann nicht installieren und fordert mich auf das auf der Liveversion vorhandene Überprüfungstool zu starten. Gleich nach dem Start werde ich aufgefordert ein Passwort einzugeben. Woher soll man denn das Passwort kennen, wo finde ich das. Ein Neuling fühlt sich völlig verarscht und lässt seine Finger von Linux. Für mich hat sich MXLinux nun auch endgültig erledigt. Die 18 und 19 waren nicht schlecht, nur die vielen Fehler haben genervt. MXLinux entwickelt sich immer mehr zum Schrotthaufen. (Meine Meinung). Hier sind die Fehler schon im System. NEIN DANKE!

Dies ist Kritik! Aus der Kritik sollwas besseres erwachsen!

[Jakob77]

Ich wollte heute MXLinux 21 installieren. Der reinste Fehlschlag! Baim Start des Live-Systems läuft die Überprüfung des Medienspeicher, und endet ohne Fehler festzustellen. Dann bei der Installation stellt er Fehler an der Partition fest, kann nicht installieren und fordert mich auf das auf der Liveversion vorhandene Überprüfungstool zu starten. Gleich nach dem Start werde ich aufgefordert ein Passwort einzugeben. Woher soll man denn das Passwort kennen, wo finde ich das. Ein Neuling fühlt sich völlig verarscht und lässt seine Finger von Linux. Für mich hat sich MXLinux nun auch endgültig erledigt. Die 18 und 19 waren nicht schlecht, nur die vielen Fehler haben genervt. MXLinux entwickelt sich immer mehr zum Schrotthaufen. (Meine Meinung). Hier sind die Fehler schon im System. NEIN DANKE!

Dies ist Kritik! Aus der Kritik sollwas besseres erwachsen!

It must be a great compliment to MX that you have been able to use it for so long without reading the manual.

From MX Linux Users Manual v. 20220313:

2.4 First look

Live Medium login In case you want to log out and back in, install new packages, etc., here are the usernames and passwords:

• Regular user
• name: demo
• password: demo

• Superuser (Administrator)
• name: root
• password: root

[hebelwirkung]

I have been on a rolling release for about a year now. (EndeavourOS to be specific)
I have been just getting updates as usual and upgrading from one release to the next just issuing the update command. ... it has been working flawlessly for about a year with just updating the system.

I can confirm this - at any rate, using EOS XFCE as a virtualbox client, no problems and rock stable. With the KDE version of EndeavourOS which I also installed in a Virtualbox just to check out their very latest, problems arose a few weeks after install. Then again, cynics including myself might say KDE with its trillions of complicated config options presents problems the moment you start running it

So anyway, assuming no glitches occur, there's still always low level anxiety associated with running a rolling release, especially when it comes to Arch based systems. Someone else in this thread pointed out the frequent and massive updates. I have my EOS set to "once daily", and usually that's enough to make it download tons, including new kernel updates, systemd versions etc almost each time. In addition, with Arch, some run-of-the-mill stuff for whatever reason is not available from the official repositories, so you need to use AUR which may or may not be safe. AUR makes you build stuff - and it can be a lengthy process, even basics like my favorite browser, Librewolf - which in Debian based systems requires a couple of clicks to install in no time. Plus you can't ever be sure that something coming from AUR won't at some point cause conflicts with stuff from the official reps, so you may end up with a broken system and no clue why this is.

With that in mind, I think while rolling would be ideal if it were reliable at all times and in any circumstances, the safer, more comfortable method probably is installing new versions. In practice, this isn't such a big deal. Back up /home to be on the safe side, then during installation make sure your current home directory is not formatted, set it to "keep old home" when the installer offers that option, and, once you're up and running again, take a little time reinstalling whatever packages you need which the fresh install is missing. I recently upgraded my main system from MX 19 to 21, and a VBox from 21 to 23beta1 - both without problems and probably using less time than you would require updating EOS if you left that unattended for a week or two.

The one thing I'd say - and this is purely personal and no criticism at all - is I do prefer the old Calamares installer. The new one MX has been using since 21 can be seen as less straightforward and somewhat daunting at first. That said, I'd recommend to stick with fixed releases and once every so many years install a fresh version.

[Jakob77]

limotux

About wasting time it depends on how you look at it. In my opinion a good discussion about Linux can almost never be a waste of time.
If handled well I believe small and big frustrations and a will among the users makes a distro better.
And just as important everybody learns something along the way.

If you accept you need a new clean install and you find the correct procedure for it I guess you will be surprised about how easy it is.
As I sense it your frustration is more about not having a good backup and restore procedure.
Your hard drive can die instantly and you have to be ready for that to happen at any moment.
If you are not on top of that situation you run it risky and can be lost no matter what kind of upgrade you aim for.

On the other hand if you have all that in place.
You have a good new backup on at least two different external unplugged disks and you know exactly how to restore.
You have written a file with your detailed configuration that can be used as recipe and check list (you made it during the first install).
Then you are ready to roll pretty fast if you have to.

However I see now that you are on another distro that I don't know.
That can be more complicated.
You might want to check some programs and their version numbers and configuration extra well before switch and restore.

But then there is no way to avoid a fresh new install for you if you want to use MX-Linux.

[j2mcgreg]

@Tomy

Dies ist ein englisches Forum und alle Antworten hier müssen in dieser Sprache erfolgen. Ansonsten gibt es ein deutsches Forum, das Sie stattdessen nutzen können

@Jakob77

Your response was spot on.

[limotux]

Well, I hope I am welcome on my "new" old laptop (

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sudo dmidecode -t bios

-> Release Date: 10/01/2018) but it is for me Brand New as I just installed MX on it.
The first thing to do was to install Chromium to log in here and say hi to you.
I will be back in a few, to discuss with you nice people.
:
Thoug the date I got is in 2018 I still believe it is much older and this might be just a BIOS update as I can see:

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Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-2450M

which was released around 2011/2012 So it is like 10 yeas old!
FYI:

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System:
  Host: limo Kernel: 6.0.0-6mx-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
  v: 10.2.1 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.5 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: MX-21.3_KDE_x64 Wildflower January 15  2023 
  base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 

[limotux]

I can confirm this - at any rate, using EOS XFCE as a virtualbox client, no problems and rock stable. With the KDE version of EndeavourOS which I also installed in a Virtualbox just to check out their very latest, problems arose a few weeks after install. Then again, cynics including myself might say KDE with its trillions of complicated config options presents problems the moment you start running it

So anyway, assuming no glitches occur, there's still always low level anxiety associated with running a rolling release, especially when it comes to Arch based systems. Someone else in this thread pointed out the frequent and massive updates. I have my EOS set to "once daily", and usually that's enough to make it download tons, including new kernel updates, systemd versions etc almost each time. In addition, with Arch, some run-of-the-mill stuff for whatever reason is not available from the official repositories, so you need to use AUR which may or may not be safe. AUR makes you build stuff - and it can be a lengthy process, even basics like my favorite browser, Librewolf - which in Debian based systems requires a couple of clicks to install in no time. Plus you can't ever be sure that something coming from AUR won't at some point cause conflicts with stuff from the official reps, so you may end up with a broken system and no clue why this is.

With that in mind, I think while rolling would be ideal if it were reliable at all times and in any circumstances, the safer, more comfortable method probably is installing new versions. In practice, this isn't such a big deal. Back up /home to be on the safe side, then during installation make sure your current home directory is not formatted, set it to "keep old home" when the installer offers that option, and, once you're up and running again, take a little time reinstalling whatever packages you need which the fresh install is missing. I recently upgraded my main system from MX 19 to 21, and a VBox from 21 to 23beta1 - both without problems and probably using less time than you would require updating EOS if you left that unattended for a week or two.

The one thing I'd say - and this is purely personal and no criticism at all - is I do prefer the old Calamares installer. The new one MX has been using since 21 can be seen as less straightforward and somewhat daunting at first. That said, I'd recommend to stick with fixed releases and once every so many years install a fresh version.

Thanks @hebelwirkung for your wonderful feed back.
Allow me to just add, well, for me I had no problems though I am on KDE, and though I have read some people facing problems (including me but was a minor thing and I got support instantly). But I still can say it is rock solid.

I agree with you that a rolling release is a good feature, that you never need to reinstall or all the hassles of backing up data, reinstalling previously installed software... etc.

Regarding to the lots of downloads, well, I can think of a way similar to a rolling release but not necessarily really rolling, I mean it can be something like changing repos (on Debian to Testing repos not sid), this way updates/upgrades will be as stable as the annual releases, but the users will get the upgrades same way as it is done in rolling. It can be annual or semi annual, or whatever the developers see fit and they are satisfied with the stability. I am not talking about having updates and upgrades as frequent as Arch or Arch based, I am talking about upgrades/updates/new releases in the same way (or technology) as rolling. That is install just once and that's all.

I am not interfering with the developers business of course, they are doing a great job with MX. But I believe brain storming might contribute something.

[FullScale4Me]

...
Gleich nach dem Start werde ich aufgefordert ein Passwort einzugeben. Woher soll man denn das Passwort kennen, wo finde ich das.
...

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Tomy -- "...Right after the start I am prompted to enter a password. 
How should I know the password, where can I find it..."

What you seek was right in front of you. ---> Was Sie suchen, lag direkt vor Ihnen.