Still sense my lack of knowledge with how the OS works after a couple of years of use, so I'm not certain about upgrading the Mepis 6.0 OS to 7.0. Is there a way to install the 7.0 without losing all the files and data that are present on the system? I've crashed three times over the past year and still recovering work lost in those self-inflicted disasters, so I have thought ahead enough to start copying files and images to usb portable drives. Is this really necessary?

I have kept up with all the upgrades and have been somewhat successful in selecting and installing new programs. Gray areas of understanding are: upgrading the Firefox browser from 1.5, getting the OS to actually read the external drive that's formatted in Windows and installing a new HP printer/scanner. I posted a thread on the external drive earlier this year and received some suggestions, but nothing work. I used LaunchPad to try and solve the HP printer/scanner problem and the programmer got to the point where he was unable to help. HMMMM? I could share the link here, however, the main concern is to install the new OS without losing all the work and settings I've worked hard to maintain.

I don't really know how Mephis upgrades work, but if 7.0 is the current release, and you've kept up with updates from 6.0, my guess would be that you're now running 7.0. No need to reinstall from a disk.

bliss4one,
Provided you used 3 partitions to install MEPIS 6 ( 1 for root, 1 for swap, and 1 for home) you can save your home partition during install. I've accomplished it on 2 different computers, but as always back up your important files in case something does go wrong. If you run the MEPIS 7 live CD there is a MEPIS users manual icon on the desktop, there's more in there on installing saving home.
MEPIS 6 was based on Ubuntu Dapper Drake, while MEPIS 7 is based on Debian Etch, so there is no upgrade path by keeping up the updates. The only way to upgrade to MEPIS 7 is with a fresh install.
You may want to hold up for now, as MEPIS 8 is in beta 1 at this time and will probably be released in the next couple of months or so, 8 is based on Debian Lenny.
For more indepth help with MEPIS visit;
http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/index.php
Hope my attempt to answer some of your questions has helped.

Thanks for the information about the upgrades. I have the three partitions and will read about the process of saving the home partition before I attempt to upgrade. I can wait for the Mepis 8 since you indicate and I've seen the notice about the Beta being out. Since I've waited this long to decide on 7.0, I can certainly wait a couple more months or so for the next generation. It will give me time to get more familiar with the command lines and possibly better understand the way my current OS works.

Peace,
Maillo

1st, as wcc1776 says, MEPIS 6 was based on the Ubuntu Dapper (6.06) repositories, so if you're "up to date" you have the security patches, but NOT any newer versions -- i.e. OOo will still be "2.0.2-2ubuntu12.6" not "2.3.0-4mepis1".


2nd, I just double checked MEPIS 7.073 (in a VM) & the installer does still have the "Preserve data in /home (if upgrading)" option, so your ability to install 7 over 6 w/o losing your home directory does not depend on its being in a separate partition/file system. That does not mean that /etc (& all its config files) or everything else outside of /home won't be overwritten. The advice to back up, however infrequently it is taken, is always good. Personally, I prefer to do a fresh install, even if it means laboriously recreating my customizations. Also, I have tried copying an old installation to a new partition & then doing a "preserve home" installation on that. Unfortunately, it's been a while, so I don't remember how well it went .

You will need to reinstall all the extra packages you had in 6. You can make a list w/ dpkg -l: dpkg can also help automate the process (from the dpkg man page):
Some caveats about using dpkg this way:

• It's a lot of CLI work.
• Although it is an old & stable feature of Debian package management, I have little experience w/ it.
• You should scan your selections file (selections.txt below) & edit it before you use it. BTW, mine would have 1324 lines.
• Although the --get-selections list does NOT include version info., some packages are kernel specific. You should find these, comment them out, & reinstall them manually.
  Code:

  grep '2\.6\.' selections.txt

  is a start.
  Code:

  sed -i '/2\.6\./s,^,#,' selections.txt

  would automate the commenting out process.

3rd, if you decide to go for 7 now (rather that wait for 8, see below) some people -- myself included -- have had video problems caused by the Xorg version included in 7.0. There is a community fix called "7.073uce" available via bittorrent. It is working just fine for me. You can read more about it here. BTW, the author, NoobJason, has links to the torrents in his sig. block.


4th, reasons to not wait for 8:

• It's release is dependent on Debian finalizing Lenny, & Debian is notorious/famous for slippage in release dates. Something about wanting to get right before releasing it.
• Warren (Woodford) has to make a living & MEPIS doesn't support him.