How to upgrade NomadBSD to version 141R

Howtos and FAQs
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First I want to thank the NomadBSD developers for the work they have done and are doing with this really cool operating system, which is my daily driver since years!

I have just done two installations of NomadBSD 141R on different notebooks (Dell and Asus).

I only updated by Octopkg about 50 qt5 and qt6 library packages.

I say I only upgraded via Octopkg because I think it would be safest not to mix FreeBSD with NomadBSD because of moderator @Ime’s clarification in this post: 14.1-release - #17 by lme

I look forward to the completion and rollout of the upgrade program, as it is not yet finished.

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NomadBSD consists of 3 parts:

  1. FreeBSD base system
  2. 3rd Party packages (built from FreeBSD’s ports tree)
  3. NomadBSD-specific tools and configuration

Each part is upgraded by another tool:

  1. Base: freebsd-update
  2. Packages: pkg or Octopkg
  3. NomadBSD: Our updater which is not yet finished

To get a new NomadBSD version you need to write the new image to the USB drive and (re-)install on your harddrive.

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Where does the code for this lies? If that part was finished upgrades would be possible?

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To upgrade NomadBSD, you currently need to write the new image to a USB and reinstall. Partial updates can be managed with freebsd-update and Octopkg until the updater is complete.

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means you install the new 141 iso over on the 140 and you will find it updated but keeping your existing personalization?

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Hello,
there is a ‘kink’ you have to realize, when using NomadBSD and decide to upgrade and keep your installation alive - you are probably crossing the border of what was originally “intended use” of this distribution!
Personally I’m OK with that :slight_smile:

Try run mount in the terminal(Sakura) and you will see a read-only unionfs entry.

/dev/md0.uzip on /unionfs/usr/local (ufs, local, read-only)

So NomadBSD is created with a compact core/blob in the filesystem, that will not change when updating the system. The updates/changes is written on-top of the blob (I’m OK with paying this ‘space-penalty’ on my desktop-system for using NomadBSD).
That is also why removing a program/package from a brand new NomadBSD-system will not release any disk-space (it is NOT removed from the underlying read-only unionfs).

AND that’s why a NomadBSD-updater is NOT as trivial or straight forward as updating a plain vanilla FreeBSD system.

PLEASE chime in with the details I’m getting wrong!

BSD-regards
Tom Ludensen

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Unfortunately no, when writing an ISO-file to your NomadBSD disk, it will wipe all previous content - including your customizations and home-folder.

Even if you ‘opened’ the ISO-file and copied its content/files to your NomadBSD 140 disk, it would overwrite most if not all of your personalization - and there might still be package-version-conflicts and a problem with the bootloader needing an update…