This page is to document migration and upgrade tips for people upgrading versions of Xandros.

It applies to folks upgrading between 3.x to 4.x.

It assumes that prior to the upgrade that the user's previous home directory was preserved as 'username_old', where 'username' is the respective user's home directory name. i.e. user 'bob' will find his new home directory containing his old home directory in 'bob_old'. Including all of the "hidden" files and directories that contain the settings for numerous programs.

All instructions assume your current directory is in the user's "old" home directory unless otherwise stated.

Important: If you are aware of some application settings being customized for a user, and you follow these instructions, and find that the customized settings were not preserved, then you will need to research the configuration files that were customized and restore them from the backup you made.

Important

• This assumes you aren't using GNOME applications. If you are, and know what to add to this document, please do so.
• Make sure you perform the steps to keep your applications before you upgrade.

Upgrading To Xandros4

Until Xandros4 is released, we can only assume that the XandrosUpgradeHOW- TO procedures still work. This page will reflect any variances or new information as it becomes known.

The important thing to remember is: DO NOT RUN ANY APPLICATIONS the first time you login for a user.

The reason is that you want to copy in the settings from the old system so that the application can upgrade the settings. If you start up the application it will create completely new already upgraded default settings for your users, and they will lose any custom settings they had.

How do I upgrade and keep my applications?

This process only preserves applications that were installed through apt-get or XandrosNetworks. Applications compiled or unpacked and installed through some installation script will NOT be migrated. You installed them on your own, so you have to upgrade them on your own.

PRIOR TO UPGRADE

On the existing Xandros system (as 'root'):

dpkg --get-selections > /floppy/selections
# or, alternatively, if upgrading, say, Xandros
# dpkg --get-selections > /root/pre-upgrade.selections

The "selections" file is a very readable text file. By manually adding or removing entries, you can quickly replicate any set of applications. You might want to remove all of the "lib..." packages. Any applications will have their dependencies resolved through the new system anyway, and use the new libraries so you probably don't need the old libraries.

AFTER UPGRADE

On the new Xandros system (as 'root'):

dpkg --set-selections < /floppy/selections
# or, alternatively, if upgrading, say, Xandros
# (which preserves your the old root user home directory in root_old)
# dpkg --set-selections < /root/root_old/pre-upgrade.selections
apt-get dselect-upgrade