Upgrading Mandriva Linux on the Fly

A brief guide on how to upgrade Mandriva on the fly. If this seems like too brief a guide to you, then I'd rather recommend an upgrade from media, or a fresh clean installation instead.

An upgrade takes longer than an installation. It's good to have a good internet connection, or a local mirror at home ;-) . Before the installation it's good to manually back up the configs you've modified. You need enough free space to download the packages, specifically in the /var directory. WARNING: If you're using a 64-bit system together with 32-bit repositories, make sure all the 32-bit repositories are turned off. (For a smoother process, you can also uninstall the 32-bit applications)

Command to remove all current software/package sources:

urpmi.removemedia -a

Manual command to add a specific package source:

urpmi.addmedia --distrib --urpmi-mode ftp://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/

1. Add the sources of the new version, at minimum: main, contrib and non-free (each has a release and an update directory). Possibly also other third-party sources you use, such as PLF or cyroň, but that can wait until later too. Mark all of them as update sources.


2. Run:

   urpmi --update --auto-select

   alternatively with the --force parameter, in which case nothing needs to be confirmed. PS: The --no-install parameter only downloads the packages but doesn't install them.


3. First urpm itself gets upgraded. Then the installer restarts and the actual system is upgraded.


4. Sometimes it can happen that not everything gets upgraded. This happens if you've been hacking around with the system's software setup in some way. For me it's always been enough to manually uninstall something and then run the upgrade command again.


5. It's a good idea to upgrade with the updates included too :-) Don't forget to also add PLF afterwards :-) Then, for the regular sources (the release directories), remove the update flag.


6. Select the new kernel and restart.


7. After restarting, I recommend enabling the harddrake service (it's hardware detection) at least once, some people disable it to speed up system startup.

What I then reinstall afterwards:
32-bit:
Wine
32-bit third-party programs:
Skype AdobeReader RealPlayer
from the PLF repositories:
ffmpeg mencoder mplayer