Installing a fresh system from scratch can be a very liberating experience, but then there are those who have installed previous versions of PCQ Linux and need only an upgrade. The following is for those who need such upgrades.

Here are some important things to do before we start.

1. Backup all your important data onto another hard disk or CDs. We can never be too careful with precious data. After all if something goes wrong, you don’t want to end up kicking yourself.

2. Be nice to your UPS for a change and top its battery. Once the upgrade is underway, there’s no turning back. We wouldn’t want the UPS to die on you while you’re upgrading, for a simple reason. Should there be a power outage once the packages start installing, you will end up with an unusable system.

On to the upgrade

1. Boot from the PCQ Linux 7.1 CD, and select ‘Upgrade’ in the install menu, instead of gateway, Intranet, or workstation installs.

2. Now the installer might prompt you to increase swap space on your hard disk. If you have unpartitioned space on your hard disk (or another hard disk), then you can safely add another swap partition, otherwise choose not to create one (recommended).

3. Now the installer will check for packages to upgrade, and for dependencies. Make sure you choose not to install any packages with missing dependencies, which it shows you in the list, especially Afterstep-apps.

4. Once it starts installing packages, you can just sit back and wait for it to finish, and of course, pray that you don’t have an unscheduled power cut.

5. Once the upgrade is over, reboot into your new PCQ Linux 7.1 box. As compared to a fresh install, there will be no visible changes to your system (Lilo Splash Screen, etc).

Your upgrade is now successful and we hope you have fun with your new system.

Sony Philip is a technology research consultant with Exocore Consulting