My old laptop is WAY behind!

[BostonPeng]

When I bought my new laptop in 2015 I help on to the old one and tried to keep it fairly up to date, but eventually I simply put it away and didn't do much with it. Tonight I saw that there were updates but when I tried to apply them I got complaints about not seeing the Jessie repos. Yep, this beast still has SolydK 8. Is there an way to do a dist-upgrade or should I just bit the bullet and do a clean install? (I'd like to avoid a clean install if I can just to save the hassle of trying to figure out what's on it that has to be backed up.)

[kurotsugi]

I'm assuming that you're using the stable version. if that true, you can do a dist-upgrade to solydxk 9. just make sure to create a backup and do a simulation before executing the real upgrade

[BostonPeng]

Thanks. tomorrow I'll dive into that process.

ETA: It turns out I have to stay up until my hair dries. Am I seeing correctly that the proper command for simulating the dist-upgrade is

Code: Select all

 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -s

[Arjen Balfoort]

Long time no see!

If your system is that way behind in updates, it is safest to do a clean install. Backup your home directory before you do that.
Take a look at the nightly builds. In a couple of weeks we will release SolydXK 10 and I don't expect any major changes in the nightlies.

https://downloads.solydxk.com/nightly/

[BostonPeng]

Hi Arjen! My main system has been working so well and I've gotten so busy that I've only poked my head in here when things start turning pear-shaped. I'll have to see what I've got for backup media (thankfully I don't need much room for that on the old laptop) and for creating the install "disk." My DVD drive has stopped working and I don't think I have a burner at this point. I think I have a thumb drive to use somewhere on my desk.

[BostonPeng]

I installed SolydK 10 from a nightly only to find out my video chips are too old for Debian Buster. In fact nvidia-detect tells me it needs the old 304 legacy drivers that are only supported as recently as stretch so I'm grabbing a SolydK ISO and I'll do a reinstall with that.

[amnesix]

What is wrong with nouveau ?

[bin]

What is wrong with nouveau ?

Acer Aspire with Nvidia 9600 M GT chip
Nouveau driver = shearing in Firefox, Googleearth unusable
Nvidia 340 plus a bit of fiddling and they work fine.

[Arjen Balfoort]

I have added the 304 legacy packages (from sid) to our solydxk-10 (buster) repository.
Could you try to install those if you install the nightly build?

[BostonPeng]

Actually I seem to have (Nuveau?) drivers working well. Should I still try the 304 drivers?

I am seeing some text issues I don't know where to fix. This is what my Discovery app looks like as I search for widgets on my other laptop.

[Arjen Balfoort]

If that is the only application that shows tearing you might want to decide to keep your system as it is now. If not, you can try to install the 304 drivers.

Check out the "SolydXK System Settings" application, first tab: Device Driver.
It already might suggest to install the driver. I only have Intel systems. So, I cannot check that.

[BostonPeng]

I'm getting tearing across the entire system so I'll try installing that driver. Unfortunately, I spent much of yesterday on that laptop so I need to put that on the list to do later.