Okay. While you are doing that, I am making a snapshot on an ext SSD. Not sure how long that will take.
Sheila
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It is this
MX-tools → User installed packages
I read something that said you use that to get all your external packages listed,
then do the upgrade
then use it again to reinstall all the packages from the list.
I see a problem
How do we trick the upgrade procedure into upgrading to itself?
and
would that be the same as a fresh install anyway?.. ie would it save your config files for all those external packages, or would it wipe them like a fresh install does?
Need to rethink this
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I didn’t find a “tool” per se, but I did find an MX discussion where you have an option to install same version while preserving /home for config files & flatpaks:
If you reinstall from scratch but preserve /home you have to be diligent with the formatting options and the prompt that come up when you press next.
If you do decide this route, you can
preserve ESP or boot (whichever one you're using),
format root
preserve home.
Make sure any other drives you have don't get formatted as wel though, the installer seems to sometimes fill in some stuff to get formatted when they shouldnt be. Just make sure to check out the Details button of the prompt when you press next after the formatting step.
Bonus: if you use flatpak user installs for softwares they get preserved as well as they get installed to ~/.var I've carried some commonly used programs between different distros by always preserving /home q: (it does get a bit messy after a while and I'm probably due for a fresh start with /home soon but saved me some headaches when distrohopping for a while)
Not sure if that is what you were thinking about, but if I understand correctly, you do this from live session.
And I had just looked at that tool of user installed since we discussed that. I am going to use that and copy list to notebook.
Sheila
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This is NOT just a LIST. This is a system checklist you can use through this tool and tell MX to install those packages. WoW! So I saved it on a flash drive just in case we do the inline upgrade and lose everything.
I cannot see the snapshot I made but that partition is full. How would I restore it since I do not see that option under snapshot?
UPDATE:
I don’t see how it could have made it on the ext SSD, but it is full now and the TS snapshots from yesterday are still there. It is my understanding you use that snapshot on a USB (use the USB maker tool) and boot from it. But I am going to wipe the partition (after saving TS snapshot) and enlarge it and try again.
Sheila
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Just delete the partial .iso file.
That will stop it being full
I think a disk is the wrong place to put the .iso file.
You need it on a usb drive ( or dvd) , so you can boot it and reinstall from the live iso.
That is how you restore it
Waste of time putting it on a disk, because you are going to have to copy it to a usb to restore anyway.
The rethink:
Caution.
It may be a wacky idea that is not going to help much.
An inline upgrade would save only the config files of package system packages, and one of those config files is probably the cause of your problems, so we may not want to save that one, but we dont know which is the offending config file?
I think wipe / and fresh install, but keep /home.
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Hey, @Gary I did not know that either. It seems to be like Timeshift as you can use exclusions, though by default it wants to back up /home. I will look into that because then that is two of those apps I will not need.
Thanks,
Sheila
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The ext SSD is bootable MX Linux disk. It is the one I saved my MX on when we were trying to get Garuda back on GRUB with MX controlling. So I made a separate partition, but the plan was to use that if we need it. I do have other USB drives, but a live version to install is usually only 3-4 GB where as what the snapshot tool did told me 236 GB would be compressed. So I am unsure we understand that yet enough to use it.
I did look in the package installer and wondered why there is a kernel, newest that I did not have as showing installed. So I installed it. It was Debian 6.9.12 (AHS). Just getting ready to reboot and see if anything changes.
Sheila
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I meant a flash drive.
That is huge. Is your / filesystem that large?
Is it maybe including /home? You dont want that
Question. How did you come to be on AHS ? If you dont need it , it is better to use standard MX releases… more stable
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I have large flash drives that I use for all the Linux distros (128 & 64 GB) then I have the 1 TB SSD that you can put an iso on and boot from it and then be able to install all your personal files in home as it is large enough to run off of. If I want to, I simply choose it in BIOS to boot from or in GRUB (it does show up there on /dev/sdc). It currently has MX 23.2 on it
It is including the /home folder for dot files/folders. Personal folders are kept on the ext HDD.
AHS is for new hardware and this machine has an i7 11th gen CPU, Nvidia RTX 3050 discrete graphics card as well as integrated graphics. I was told to use that with the system hardware I have.
Sheila
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I think that is probably correct. That new graphics card will be the problem.
I dont get why it is so large. You must have some large flatpaks or static binaries ?
You can alway rsync a whole OS to another disk. That does it without compression.
I suppose , now that your backup disk is OK, you could go back to an earlier TS snapshot, or even to the last CZ.
That might be easier than a fresh install. Just make sure you go back to before the problems started.
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First, let me say that while switching the ext HDD to a different port worked to resolve the in/out error, it did not fix the permission error (or what I thought was a permission error since it said “Read-Only” when I tried to copy to the drive or delete files). The option to paste and delete were greyed out.
So I ran efsck on it last night and a LOT of errors were found and fixed. Now today, I can copy, delete etc. So there were issues with the drive beyond Timeshift access and drive connection.
Now that I have the User Installed pkg list saved, I am going to go to live session and see if the option to save/home and reinstall is available. If so, choose that.
If not, I have the list, I have Timeshift snapshots and even the CZ image made this past week.
Sheila
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Do you mean that faulty MX now is able to access the backup drive?
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Yes, not only did I need to move to another port (that fixed the stable connection issue as sometimes it would not even appear in file manager) but fixing the errors now got rid of MX mounting the drive in Read Only state.
But of course, in my speaker thread, we now have a fresh install with issues of its own. 
sheila
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Cant you roll back . That speaker issue is far less serious than the disk problem. You must be able to recover that MX without a fresh install now.
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Not sure what you mean. Here we have been talking about the ext HDD that had errors which caused it to be mounted as read-only. That is why I could not access the drive to delete CZ images, etc. and why chown to myself did not resolve that issue. But since efsck found and fixed those errors, the ext HDD works fine and does have my TS rollbacks if needed.
I was just trying to do what we discussed in reinstall while preserving /home for all of my dot folders. That did not work.
So do you want me to put the old MX back on via TS?
Sheila
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I mean, we thought that your MX had a usb disk reading issue. Now you have solved the disk reading issue and MX is not at fault there.
When I suggested reinstall, I thought your MX had unsolvable problems. Now it only has the minor speaker problem.
Therefore I think a reinstall is now unnecessary… you should be able to go back to a backup of MX from before you used BT
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Since this issue is now resolved by both your suggestion to try another port and mine of fixing the ext HDD errors, let’s continue this in the “speaker thread” since I have now posted updates there of trying to reinstall same vers with preserve /home, which failed, and have now a new install, but issues may mean I need to roll back to my old install via Timeshift.
Sheila
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