1.6.4 ISO installation and update

[Duncan Gibson]

The current 1.6.4 ISO is a little outdated, and after all this time
it requires a little extra care and attention to install correctly.
This article should provide the extra instructions you will need
to install Lunar Linux while you wait for the next ISO release.

The Lunar Linux 1.6.4 ISO was released around Christmas 2008. As
Lunar is a rolling distro, anyone who downloaded and installed then
will have been able to keep their system up-to-date with the latest
versions of the major packages by running "lunar update" regularly.
Such incremental updates usually only involve a handful of packages
at a time, and Lunar's package management system is able to update
the packages in the right order, and rebuild others that depend on
them as required.

However, in the nine months since that release, and in preparation
for the next release, a large number of key packages on that ISO
have also seen major releases, most notably gcc, glibc, readline
and udev. If you were to install the 1.6.4 ISO now, and follow the
usual update instructions given in "man lfirsttime", your "big bang"
update will probably fail due to version mismatches between tools.

If you want to install and update the 1.6.4 ISO successfully, you
will need to follow the additional steps described below. To save
extra rework, please read all of the instructions before you start.

1.  Install the 1.6.4 ISO as usual, with a pre-compiled kernel.

2.  Reboot the system, and set up your network as described in
    "man lfirsttime", but do not follow its update instructions.

3.  DO NOT "lin moonbase" or anything else yet!

4.  Run "lunar hold coreutils" to stop coreutils being rebuilt
    until the rest of the system is up-to-date, otherwise you risk
    breaking key tools, and the installation will fail.

5.  Run "lin -rc gcc" to rebuild the version from the ISO

6.  Run "lin -rc glibc" to rebuild the version from the ISO

7.  Run "lin -rc pcre" to rebuild the version from the ISO

8.  Run "lin moonbase" to get the latest package information

9.  Run "lin -rc gcc" to build the latest version to replace the
    version from the ISO. This will also rebuild gmp and mfpr.

10. Run "lunar",  select "Option/Optimize Architecture/GCC_4_4",
    set this compiler as the default, and then select your
    bopt, cpu, and cc_opt settings.
    If in doubt, check the "GCC_4_2" settings if available.

11. Run "lin -rc gcc glibc gcc bash tar wget"

12. Run "lin -rc e2fsprogs" to get an updated blkid

13. Run "lin -rc util-linux" to fix the e2fsprogs breakage

14. Run "lunar nofix" here to check the previous two steps!

15. Run "lin -rc libusb" to get an updated libusb to build hal

16. Run "lin -rc hal" to avoid subsequent udev failure

17. Run "lin -rc udev"

18. Run "lin -rc linux-2.6" to rebuild your kernel

19. Run "lunar nofix" and if all is well, reboot to new kernel.

20. Run "lunar update" AND EDIT THE UPDATE LIST !!!
    Remove "kernel-headers-2.6" and "readline" from the update list!

    You can let the update run [overnight] and it will eventually
    pause towards the end when "vim" prompts for the %X alias.

21. Run "lunar renew" and this time don't edit the update list,
    which should only consist of "kernel-headers-2.6", "readline"
    and possibly "lvm2" if step 20 ran unattended.

22. Run "lunar unhold coreutils" to allow them to be rebuilt

23. Run "lin -rc coreutils"

24. CONGRATULATIONS! Your base system is now up-to-date and ready
    for you to begin your customisations for server or desktop use.

Note that you can run "lunar nofix" after each step to check for
breakage if you want, and that the instructions below were correct
at the time of writing, but may need updating as new versions of
some of the packages become available.