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Idea #7972: Upgrade non-destructive "clean install"

Written by ayeomans the 2 May 08 at 08:51. Related project: Live CD installer. Status: New
Rationale
Upgrading a system always carries some risk of breakage. And can be a lengthy process if not already at the latest version, much longer than a fresh installation.

This would also be *extremely useful* in enterprise environments, as it gives a quick recovery path if something fails during the upgrade. And also give lots of re-assurance that you won't end up with a non-functioning system.
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Solution #1: Upgrade to a new partition with package list update
Written by ayeomans the 2 May 08 at 08:51.
Rather than perform an upgrade by modifying all the software packages, and risking breakage, it should be possible to do a clean install of an equivalent system into a new partition.

The upgrade process would be:-
- Create a new root partition for the new system
- Examine package list of old system
- Cleanly install all these packages (with some replacements as necessary) to the new partition
- Create grub menus to boot both the new and the old system
(Yes, I've skipped a few complexities)
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Solution #2: Store configuration on Ubuntu One
Written by ayeomans the 29 Jul 09 at 06:09.
From comment by Paul Saint Leger Morales:

"when we are downloading the configuration using the desktop application (of ubuntu one), this application suggests the installation of the application associated to that configuration (obviously, if this application is not installed yet). One example of the desktop application of Ubuntu one would be:

* Ubuntu One has available the following configurations, please select the configuration that you want to download:
--- Emacs x
--- Mozilla
--- Empathy x

You are decided to download Empathy and Emacs, but Emacs is not currently installed in your O.S., do you want to install Emacs from Ubuntu repositories?

--> Yes

-----------------
Using this, we could restore our workspace in any machines in very little time or we could install several O.S. (Ubuntu in this case) with applications necessary without spending too much time."
(The thread starts at https://lists.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-users/msg00116.html)

So by extension we could use Ubuntu One to save a configuration, with assistance to reinstall apps on another system, or the same system after reinstallation.

Propose your solution

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Comments
steve196 wrote on the 2 May 08 at 10:13
If there is a possibility to import/export the installed package list of apt, then doing that and copying your home directory should do it. One of the two systems must not be permitted to upgrade grub.

tgape wrote on the 2 May 08 at 11:32
If grub used /boot in a portable manner, then so long as /boot was its own partition, enabling it to be properly shared between the different "systems", there should not be any problem running grub from both.

If grub could extract its configuration into files, such that one could grab the current config, update it, and store the new version, there would not be any problem running grub from both, so long as some form of revision sanity was performed.

vexorian wrote on the 2 May 08 at 12:48
So, what's exactly the reason you are not using the live-cd to install on the new partition and just keep your /home ?

ayeomans wrote on the 9 May 08 at 10:51
@vexorian - that's basically what I do on an individual machine. But it's still a messy process to duplicate the set of packages on the new partition.

One point I didn't make clear, was that I'd like the clean-partition installation to be done without needing to stop the current system. Especially for a server; having a single re-boot installation minimises downtime.

mssever wrote on the 5 Aug 09 at 00:33
The problem with the existing proposed solutions is that they don't take into account all configuration. In addition to copying /home and the list of installed packages, you also need to backup /etc and probably portions of /var. Otherwise, you'll potentially lose a lot of configuration. However, once you try to do a clean install on top of an existing /etc, you're liable to have problems. So the solution here isn't as simple as one might imagine.

Only backing up /home and the list of installed packages would be harmful because it would lead people to assume that they'd wind up with basically the same system, when in fact they could easily have a system that's configured quite differently. This is especially a potential issue for servers.


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