el rinconcito

Gaaw-aawl-leee it was easy! I got off work early today, so why not do a version upgrade. I updated my Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) to 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). It was easy. It was crazy easy! I have a bit of an odd method of doing it, but it worked like a charm and it saved me from those overloaded download servers, since this new version was just rolled out yesterday and everybody is going at it right now.

#1: I don't use the Internet upgrade since it puts you totally at the mercy of those overloaded servers. It will be fine to do it this way in a week probably, after the download frenzy calms down. I basically do a CD upgrade, but without burning the CD.

#2: I grabbed the .iso file using bittorrent, which fetched it in in no time, then I can share it back to others for ages. Imagine *sharing* an operating system, legally! It still gives me chills sometimes. No freakin' EULA's, no cryptic product codes, just enjoy it and have fun! For the upgrade, get the "alternate desktop CD" iso file.

#3: I didn't bother to burn the .iso file to a CD, instead I mounted the iso directly. The advantage to this is that the updater can read files off the hard drive a bazillion times faster than the CD drive, and sometimes my CD drive spins down and won't rev back up, which puts a halt to everything.

Here's what you want to do with the "alternate desktop CD" iso file you got by bittorrent:

Create a mount point. This is just making a directory somewhere where you will see the contents of the iso file. I just put it in my home directory, so if your home directory is /home/cutiepie, just make a directory and call it anything, like "kubuntu".

Open a virtual terminal in your home directory and:

mkdir kubuntu

Go find the .iso file you got (kubuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso) and mount it to the directory you just made:

sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 kubuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso /home/cutiepie/kubuntu

Now, you can either change into the kubuntu directory or type the entire file path. I'll just jump into the directory with it. It's more cozy! :

cd /home/cutiepie/kubuntu

Now it's just like you were browsing the CD, had you burned one.

Start the upgrade!

As long as you have changed into the "kubuntu" directory you made earlier, you can just type this:

kdesudo "./cdromupgrade"

#4: Enjoy the upgrade. You might get asked a question or two, but go off and do things, like eat, walk the dog, or sit on the toilet. It will wait until you get back for the answers. It will ask if you want to allow it to get files that are even newer from the Internet, if available. It doesn't matter much if you say "yes" or "no". You can get them during the upgrade, or get them afterwards. If you've written custom configuration files deep within the system, you might get asked if you want to keep them or have them replaced. If in doubt, replace them. That's about all I got asked during the whole process.

Both the Ubuntu and Kubuntu webpages have instructions, but I just felt like posting what I did. Getting the iso file by bittorrent and doing the upgrade by reading the file directly really saved a lot of time while the download server loads were high.

Last thing, the KDE desktop is more beautiful than ever. It's so beautiful, it's almost erotic!