Computer Software > Linux
Linux in-place upgrade?
Alex Atkin UK:
What are the headaches they speak of from just running a plain 64bit OS?
Weaver:
Could you explain, Alex? One of our number pointed me towards the clever container solution way back when I was asking about an AArch64 build, which wasn’t so easy to come by back then.
The problem with Debian Buster AArch64 is that the build of GCC GDC (for the D language) is broken. Comes up with stupid internal errors the moment you try to compile and link anything at all. I really need GDC as I want to try out some GCC-specific features, and I also want to try some AArch64 asm embedded in GDC-specific specialised D code. Luckily I also have the LLVM-based D compiler (called LDC or LDC2), so that means that I can produce AArch64 code from D source, and the compiler is very hugh quality. Unfortunately the way LDC handles embedded asm is not the same as GDC’s syntax, but hopefully the authors will help the developers out and converge the two syntaxes at some point, so that you don’t have to duplicate all asm inside compile-time ‘static-if’ statements (equivalent to #if/#ifdef in C), one block for each compiler.
However another thing I’m interested in is exploring GCC and GDC’s GCC-specific features, and so for that LDC is not an option, so AArch64 can’t be used in these experiments. I have the GDC compiler for 32-bit ARM architectures, so I can use that to explore GDC.
I also need to get the Raspberry Pi 4 up and running since it has its AArch-64 Ubuntu. That machine got buried in Janet’s filing system and was only rediscovered by archaeologists last week. So I want to upgrade that and then start doing some maintenance work on it.
An aside:
I finally solved the problem of how to remotely run programs in my ZyXEL modems from my iPad. The problem was that I write code for my iPad using the Apple Shortcuts framework. This offers a Shortcuts library routine that will SSH into a remote machine and then run some script on it. There’s some bug somewhere which causes the SSH connection setup to fail when talking to a modem using that Shortcuts routine. However, I did manage to set things up to run remote commands on the Raspberry Pi from the iPad successfully using the same Shortcuts routine. The code I wrote runs a bash script remotely and that script gets sent a block of data as an argument, which gets decoded, written to disk, and is then an arbitrary runnable script file, which finally gets run on the Pi. Now the solution came to me. I remotely, on the Pi, ran telnet into the modem, say spawn telnet 192.168.x.1 but under the control of an expect script. The expect script controls telnet and automates things, making it log into a modem and then it finally runs chosen commands in the modem’s ZyXEL command interpreter or even uses Burakkucat’s trick to break out and get into a real bash shell in the modem. And then the job is done. This works because I’m connecting to the modem using telnet in this case, not SSH, and so that avoids any problems with the modems’ SSH implementation, or who knows what is going on between the iPad and the modem regarding SSH from Shortcuts. I would never have had to do this if I had telnet library routines on the iPad plus the likes of an ‘expect’ function to do automation and remote control.
So now, for the first time ever, I can just hit an icon on the iPad and it forces a resync on modem n.
Chrysalis:
Only last night remotely upgraded a FreeBSD server in a DC, no issues.
Ubuntu and Debian can be upgraded remotely, if an OS doesnt support remote upgrading in 2023 then its not a competitive OS.
One note though, if you are more than one version old, then go to the next version, then do another upgrade after, dont skip a version.
An alternative idea if you risk averse is move to using VM's, as then you can snapshot the VM before starting as well as getting console access via the VM host. Or setup an ubuntu VM, practice on it, then do the real thing on your live device.
Alex Atkin UK:
--- Quote from: Chrysalis on April 24, 2023, 06:58:54 PM ---Ubuntu and Debian can be upgraded remotely, if an OS doesnt support remote upgrading in 2023 then its not a competitive OS.
--- End quote ---
I feel the same, was my bone of contention with CentOS as I was stuck on 7 for years and why I got an IONOS VPS as its not practical to lose my e-mail for hours to do a complete reinstall of my main VPS. Especially given fresh installs of Virtualmin can be a PITA.
Always thought that was odd given how well Fedora support upgrades.
meritez:
--- Quote from: Alex Atkin UK on April 25, 2023, 07:44:03 PM ---I feel the same, was my bone of contention with CentOS as I was stuck on 7 for years and why I got an IONOS VPS as its not practical to lose my e-mail for hours to do a complete reinstall of my main VPS. Especially given fresh installs of Virtualmin can be a PITA.
Always thought that was odd given how well Fedora support upgrades.
--- End quote ---
You can upgrade from CentOS 7 to Rocky or Alma:
https://docs.rockylinux.org/guides/migrate2rocky/
https://almalinux.org/elevate/
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