I _meant_ to do that!
Oct. 9th, 2007 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuOkay, that's a lie. I meant to upgrade my system from OpenSUSE 10.1 to OpenSUSE 10.3 yesterday. To that end, I did the following:
1. Backed up all my documents, images, videos, music and a few config and application preference files in my home directory.
2. Downloaded and burned to CD or DVD the .iso install files for OpenSUSE 10.3 as well as the Non-OSS "extras" disk (which includes the non-open source software they can't legally include in the OS but which third parties helpfully provide).
3. Thought I checked the MD5 checksum of the installation CD to verify that it was a valid, working copy. (The astute reader will already know where this is going....) In my defense, I will say that getting the files downloaded and burned onto CD turned out to be a hell of a lot more difficult than it ought to have been. What with media issues (CD-R vs CD-RW blank CDs) and what I suspect is an ancient (by electronic tech standards) CD burner conspired to make it necessary to download and try to burn several times before I got what I thought was a working copy. (I know I compared the checksums of the original and the copy at one point--but it must not have been on the final copy.)
4. Began installing, only to find--after hitting the "Yes, destroy my perfectly functional operating system" button that a good quarter of the files on the install disk were corrupt. Which led to the installation attempt crashing, leaving me with a completely non-functional computer. "Okay," I thought anxiously, "no worries. I have the install CDs for 10.1, I can always backtrack."
5. Ha! It is to laugh! That was no more successful than the upgrade attempt. Arguably it was worse. When the 10.3 install software detected a corrupted file it asked I wanted to Abort, Retry or Ignore. Abort was not an option. Retry never, ever worked. Ignore was my default choice, hoping I could at least get a semi-function system working and bootstrap my way to success by downloading the missing files. But there were too many, and they were too critical. But at least I had that hope. The 10.1 install had one response and one response only when it found a non-working file: Crash!
6. At 2:30 this morning I gave up and went to bed.
7. This morning had an idea. I have some OS DVDs I've collected from Linux Format magazine, published in England. Each issue includes a give-away DVD with software on it (and usually a different Linux OS to try out). I had one with OpenSUSE 10.2. "What the hell," I thought. "Why not? I've got nothing to lose." I popped it into the DVD drive not really expecting it to work--but damned if it didn't boot up.
8. A couple of hours later I have a fully functional computer again running Suse 10.2. I'm downloading the 10.3 install CD software again (using bit torrent this time, since that is supposedly less likely to be corrupted). I will eventually try to upgrade to 10.3 again. Eventually.
1. Backed up all my documents, images, videos, music and a few config and application preference files in my home directory.
2. Downloaded and burned to CD or DVD the .iso install files for OpenSUSE 10.3 as well as the Non-OSS "extras" disk (which includes the non-open source software they can't legally include in the OS but which third parties helpfully provide).
3. Thought I checked the MD5 checksum of the installation CD to verify that it was a valid, working copy. (The astute reader will already know where this is going....) In my defense, I will say that getting the files downloaded and burned onto CD turned out to be a hell of a lot more difficult than it ought to have been. What with media issues (CD-R vs CD-RW blank CDs) and what I suspect is an ancient (by electronic tech standards) CD burner conspired to make it necessary to download and try to burn several times before I got what I thought was a working copy. (I know I compared the checksums of the original and the copy at one point--but it must not have been on the final copy.)
4. Began installing, only to find--after hitting the "Yes, destroy my perfectly functional operating system" button that a good quarter of the files on the install disk were corrupt. Which led to the installation attempt crashing, leaving me with a completely non-functional computer. "Okay," I thought anxiously, "no worries. I have the install CDs for 10.1, I can always backtrack."
5. Ha! It is to laugh! That was no more successful than the upgrade attempt. Arguably it was worse. When the 10.3 install software detected a corrupted file it asked I wanted to Abort, Retry or Ignore. Abort was not an option. Retry never, ever worked. Ignore was my default choice, hoping I could at least get a semi-function system working and bootstrap my way to success by downloading the missing files. But there were too many, and they were too critical. But at least I had that hope. The 10.1 install had one response and one response only when it found a non-working file: Crash!
6. At 2:30 this morning I gave up and went to bed.
7. This morning had an idea. I have some OS DVDs I've collected from Linux Format magazine, published in England. Each issue includes a give-away DVD with software on it (and usually a different Linux OS to try out). I had one with OpenSUSE 10.2. "What the hell," I thought. "Why not? I've got nothing to lose." I popped it into the DVD drive not really expecting it to work--but damned if it didn't boot up.
8. A couple of hours later I have a fully functional computer again running Suse 10.2. I'm downloading the 10.3 install CD software again (using bit torrent this time, since that is supposedly less likely to be corrupted). I will eventually try to upgrade to 10.3 again. Eventually.
