MaximumHoyt

Back in the early days of Linux, the changes to the operating system were so dramatic that even when updating withing the same distro, in-place point release updates were problematic enough and it was always recommended that a major version release be done from scratch. There were just too many major changes to the underlying subsystems and package naming conventions. Doing an in-place update was just asking for trouble. Modern distros have matured quite a bit even though there are occasionally some major subsystem changes being made. Yet it's never been easier to do an in-place major version upgrade. For upgrades from Mageia7 to Mageia8, just skip to the bottom, but it is essentially the same steps. I just did the upgrade on several Mageia6 systems and the results were consistent and satisfactory, not to mention simple. Step 0. Always backup critical information. Have a Mageia7 recovery disc on hand. You can download the ISO image from here . Read the Release Notes , t...

I wanted to upgrade to Mandriva 2009.1 and had the .iso image, but the checksum failed. Since I was at my workshop and had only EVDO modem service, I didn't want to download the entire .iso again and I remembered that I could use rsync to "fix" the damaged .iso file. To avoid using bandwidth at the garage, I use a USB drive at home (where I have Verizon FIOS) to mirror the current Mandriva repositories using rsync, so I knew that Georgia Tech had an rsync server. I just needed to find the path to the .iso files. NOTE: Although Mandriva 2009 is now obsolete, the technique described here still works on any downloaded file using and rsync server. Starting with: $ rsync rsync.gtlib.gatech.edu:: I eventually wound up with: rsync://rsync.gtlib.gatech.edu::mandrake/mandrake/official/iso/2009.1/ as the path. Then, I changed directory to where I had the damaged .iso file and executed (all on one line): $ rsync -Pz --stats --inplace --ignore-times rsync://rsync...