whats Linux's i386/winnt32.exe ?

[Ahmed Malik]

In MS-Windows
1) I have Win2k Professional Installed on C: Partition
2) I copied I386 folder from Installation media onto my hard disk's partition, say on D:
3) To install another copy of win2k or to upgrade my existing OS, I do the following
start->run->D:\I386\winnt32.exe

Same thing, I want to achieve in Linux. I have Linux9 installed.

Now let me know which folder should I copy on my hard disk, I mean whats the equivalent of I386 folder in Linux.
And which file should I have to execute to install/upgrade Linux. I mean which file is equivalent of winnt32.exe here in Linux.

Rgrds,
Ahmed Malik

[Steven E. Protter]

Oh.

With Linux, you build a new set of CD's or an image on the network and boot off of it.

Those utilities are on the distribution cd's under the dosutils folder on most Red Hat releases, cd 1.

SEP

[Mark Grant]

Ahmed,

You generally don't need to upgrade the whole lot at once. Occasionally you might but usually people upgrade bits at a time. The beauty of Linux is that you can choose which approach you take. Linux comes in different "presentations" called distributions. They all do generally the same thing but behave in different ways. Some distributions like Debian, Red Hat and now SuSe will come with a little command which,sadly, is different on each one, that pretty much does the whole thing for you. For example, say you want to upgrade to the latest Samba on Debian. You pretty much type apt-get samba (or something similar) and it does it all. Some distributions, allow you to upgrade the whole system like this. Other distributions, such as Slackware, make you do it all at once from CD or in bits manually. Each have there own strenghts and weaknesses.

Generally speaking, a fresh install from CD (even for Windows) is going to give you the best results though.

So, to attempt to answer your question, it might be useful to know exactly what you want to achieve.

[Ahmed Malik]

Sep, I will check and try to folow u tomorow. I m at home.

Mark, I want to install/re-install/upgrade Linux,... but not from Installation Cds, but from my own Hard Disk. In windows, there is a folder on intalltion cd named 'I386', which is the Installation Folder. If someone copy the I386 folder from Installation Cd, then he/she didnt need the installation Cd. In i386 folder there is a file named 'winnt32.exe' which begins the installation, so to start the installation one have to simply execute the winnt32.exe file from I386 folder, then installation(re-install a new copy of OS, or upgradation) begins. Same I want to acheive in Linux. Now following is the scenario:
1) Let suppose I have Linux8 installed
2) I want to upgrade Linux8 to Linux9.
3) And I want to upgrade not from the installation Cds, but from my own hard Disk.

Now which folder on Installation Media should I copy on my hard disk, and which file should I have to execute in order to begin installation ?

Regrds
Ahmed Malik

[Stuart Browne]

All of the "RedHat/" structures into a folder on your HDD, and after that, you need to look at the 'anaconda' command. I've never done it before from a "running" system (which this will be), but I don't beleive it's possible.

[Ahmed Malik]

Thnks Stuart.

[dirk dierickx]

You can copy all rpm's from the cd's to a directory and then upgrade your system manually like that.
or if you are using rpm with apt or yum you can point it to another repository of a higher version and do an update.

[James Damour · Accepted solution]

I don't know what the equivalent command is in Red Hat, but if you were running Debian (www.debian.org), and you wanted to upgrade to the most recent "testing" release you would follow the following proceedure:

1) Make sure that you're connected to the Internet.
2) Log on as a normal user.
3) Open up a command prompt (a "terminal" in Linux parlance).
4) Execute the command, "su -" to switch to the administrator user (the "root" user in Linux parlance).
5) Edit "/etc/apt/sources.list" and add the following lines:
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free
6) Execute the command, "apt-get dist-upgrade".

You'll probably have upgraded your kernel, so you'll have to reboot to use it.

Everything you may need to know about upgrading and maintaining packages is described in the APT HOWTO: http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#apt-howto

I'm certain that if you perform a google search, you'll find similar resources for upgrading Red Hat.


P.S. part of the reason that people are having a hard time giving you a straight answer is that Linux is not one huge, monolithic construct; you upgrade individual packages weekly instead of everything at once every two or three years. Also, typically, you don't upgrade from a local hard drive, you upgrade from a set of CD-ROMs or from the network.

For example, you described your network as 30 client PCs and some number of servers. A typical Linux administrator in your situation would set up a local repository the "mirrors" the packages from their distributor (typically Red Hat, Suse, or Debian). He could then configure all of his servers (and possibly client PCs) to access the local mirror as the source for their upgrades. He would *then* write a series of command scripts (scheduled to run overnight or on weekends via the "cron" command) and have each server (and client) run those scripts to automatically upgrade themselves. One you have this basic mechanism in place, you can start making variations on this theme. You can set up a test environment where you make sure that the packages from your distributor work before you make them available on the production network. You can have separate mirrors for your servers and clients (to meet the different needs of each).

The hardest part of switching from MicroSoft to Linux is learning how to handle all the new choices that you are given by Linux.

[Ahmed Malik]

Thanks James Damour for the explanation.

Rgrds
Ahmed Malik