1. Preamble

The aim of this howto is to show how you can upgrade a Frugalware-1.7 (Gaia) system to Frugalware-1.8 (Cinna).

2. Deprecated package removal

Some packages will not gracefully be removed because of strict dependencies. Here is the command to remove them before an upgrade:

pacman-g2 -Rd systemd-gtk systemd-plymouth dracut-plymouth plymouth plymouth-theme-frugalware plymouth-theme-glow plymouth-theme-solar plymouth-theme-spinfinity ffmpeg-compiletime ffmpeg-0.6 ffmpeg-0.6-compiletime

3. pacman-g2

The new release comes with an improved pacman-g2, you should install it first:

pacman-g2 -Sy pacman-g2

4. Upgrading the system

Now it’s time to upgrade the system itself:

pacman-g2 -Su
:: Starting local database upgrade...

You will be asked to replace some packages automatically. These are normal and you are expected to answer Y to these questions (or just hit ENTER).

After this, the list of to-be-upgraded packages is displayed. Just hit enter and wait. Make some tea, it can take a while. :-)

5. Updating config files

pacman-g2 does not touch configuration files in case you customized them. You should run

find /etc -name '*.pacnew'

and update each configuration file based on the .pacnew version. Once you’re done with one, you should remove the .pacnew file.

6. GRUB2 upgrade

GRUB2 has been upgraded to its latest release. Please check your grub config under /etc/default/grub and compare it to the /etc/default/grub.pacnew file and update it as needed. The main things to look for is changing the GRUB_BACKGROUND to /boot/grub/background.png and removing splash from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, as plymouth has been removed. Also, please feel free to look at what is new in the default config. You may find something you wish to try out.

Now that your config has been updated, it’s time to upgrade GRUB2 in your MBR. Running grubconfig as root should be enough to complete this task for you, provided grubconfig worked for you when you originally installed or upgraded to 1.7. If it is not, please try these commands, making sure to replace DEVICE wit the device node of the hard drive your root partition is on:

grub-install --no-floppy --recheck --boot-directory=/boot DEVICE
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

7. vconsole.conf

/etc/sysconfig/keymap and /etc/sysconfig/font is now replaced by systemd’s /etc/vconsole.conf. If you still have those files around after the upgrade, please manually merge their contents to vconsole.conf, and then remove those files.

rm -f /etc/sysconfig/{font,keymap}

8. locale.conf

/etc/sysconfig/language and /etc/profile.d/lang.sh is now replaced by systemd’s /etc/locale.conf. These should be automatically converted to /etc/locale.conf upon upgrade, but if not then you should manually merge the LANG variable from /etc/profile.d/lang.sh to /etc/locale.conf.

Also, if the new /etc/locale.conf file does not have .utf8 at the end of your LANG variable, then you should manually append it. We will no longer be supporting any other locale character encoding after this stable release.

This change is badly needed for many terminal applications and terminal emulators to function in unicode.

Finally, when you are done with the conversion, you should remove the file.

rm -f /etc/profile.d/lang.sh

9. The reboot

Since the kernel is upgraded, too, you have to reboot your machine.

Done!