Can i update my NomadBSD 1.4 installed on my PC to a new version 130 210508?
I had to follow FreeBSD documentation to do so?
Thank you
Having just installed 1.4 to multiple computers, & having forgotten what I knew about FreeBSD from years ago, (which has probably changed anyway), what is the correct safe way to upgrade to this newest version on my computers, thanks.
I do have a backup of my data, but would rather not have to re install it to them all. 
Does this work for Nomad as well, or are there any differences(?)
Blockquote
Upgrading Using âFreeBSD Updateâ
The freebsd-update(8) utility supports binary upgrades of i386 and amd64 systems running earlier FreeBSD releases. Systems running 11.4-RELEASE or 12.2-RELEASE can upgrade as follows:
freebsd-update fetch
freebsd-update install
Now the freebsd-update(8) utility can fetch bits belonging to 13.0-RELEASE. During this process freebsd-update(8) will ask for help in merging configuration files.
freebsd-update upgrade -r 13.0-RELEASE
freebsd-update install
The system must now be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before the non-kernel components are updated.
shutdown -r now
After rebooting, freebsd-update(8) needs to be run again to install the new userland components:
freebsd-update install
At this point, users of systems being upgraded from earlier FreeBSD releases will be prompted by freebsd-update(8) to rebuild all third-party applications (e.g., ports installed from the ports tree) due to updates in system libraries.
After updating installed third-party applications (and again, only if freebsd-update(8) printed a message indicating that this was necessary), run freebsd-update(8) again so that it can delete the old (no longer used) system libraries:
freebsd-update install
Finally, reboot into 13.0-RELEASE
shutdown -r now
/Blockquote
Sadly, i tried to update NomadBSD to the new 130 version, but something went wrong, so i had to say goodbye to all my previous system.
Reinstalled today, not without some blasphemy.
Conclusions: iâm too ignorant about system admin. Before to run, itâs necessary to know walking.
Sigh
Sorry to hear that, it does seem to be much more complicated than upgrading a Linux system, even OpenBSD is easier, which is what I used to use when I wanted to run BSD.
I think personal data should always be separate from the operating system - it should use another âsliceâ - but we have to learn to live with what we are given, & Iâm grateful to all the programmers & other people who give so freely of their expertise for no cost to the end user.
I was a Linux user since one month ago, and in that land i never used a rolling release, so i havenât no skills about administering this type of systemâs upgrading.
The problem is not in Nomad(free)BSD, but in the dummy users like me.
Donât put yourself down, we were once all beginners & had to learn, I made some real bad mistakes when I started out⌠
one thing I learned about NomadBSD, although it is the most versatile/friendly BSD based system for an average user like me, by the other side it is âtoo youngâ for attempting a process like e version upgrade without getting an appropriate knowledge, or at least not having done a backup of the previous working system. This is what the updated âtwinâ USB volume cloned system is intended to work for. I newly installed the 130R version without upgrading from the 1.4 (takes less than half hour from image downloading to the end of installation) but still keeping the previous one until I reach the confidence that everything is working and running on the new version like it was on the 1.4.
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Thanks.
Maybe i will install the new version, when i feel that is time to do so. Until this perception i will stay with my 14 system version.
Thank you 
Hello fellow users,
NomadBSD is great and what I very much like about it is,
they donât try to work on and improve everything at once (we all know those project moving in many directions at once resulting in breaking stuff and bugs because focus and the big picture is lost⌠).
So a big thumbs up to the developers of NomadBSD for not loosing focus!
NomadBSD is distributed as a finished binary image-file - not as an installer doing consecutive steps to your USB-drive/SSD/harddrive. This makes it difficult to make an in-place upgrade (I think). Youâre not making a file-copy but a block-copy, when writing your image to the disk.
But IF you are using ZFS (many features also work on UFS) then please leverage this great âtoolâ!!!
Before making updates/upgrades/changes, be sure to make a snapshot (of that part of your system). Then you can roll back to a functioning system, if your upgrade (tinkering) fails. This is HUGE - you donât have to reinstall anything
If yourâre upgrading the whole OS, then make a new boot environment (BE) - again, so you can boot into your old functioning system if anything goes wrongâŚ
Robonuggie recently made a video about this ZFS-feature:
Bectl & Beadm - FreeBSD Gold!
Disclaimer:
I donât have any experience using snapshots on USB-bootdrives - only on SSD and spinning discs.
agree, but I wonder how come this is not described in NomadBSD man pages (is it?)
Anyway a similar method to keep a working/safe system in parallel of a test one, is making a volume clone of the safe main USB volume, which I do by dd.
When the test one gets messed up or became unbootable, I clone the previous working one to it in less than 1 hour
Taking snapshots and rolling back to a snapshot is near instantaneous!
Try it and save the 1 hour waiting 
-it also uses less spaceâŚ
youâre right, I found that videotutorial enlightning and the bectl tool effective for the purpose.
I also found a text explaination on a review page even more understandable (according to my personal feel) than the video:
the fact is that:
1-this activity should be implemented-advertised-shared with more effectiveness than letting a user discover itself or by the goodwill of another user
2-the application functionality deserves a gui handling.
one of the desktop BSD distribution called TrueOS in 2017 and Project Trident in 2019 (now sadly migrated on Void Linux , not BSD core anymore), was on ZFS and had a Boot Enviroment handling by GUI integrated in the system update manager window. It was a wonderful tool, no particular knowledge needed, the user just knew how to create-restore-delete a BE by watching the application window menu.
Here below is a snapshot, it is selfexplicative. I wish something like that in NomadBSD and FreeBSD
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Remember NomadBSDâs namesake: NomadBSD is a persistent live system for USB flash drives, based on FreeBSDÂŽ.
Doing major whole-system updates on a usb flash drive is not usually healthy for it.
For convenience, it does have the installer to install to a hard drive, where wholesale upgrades are possible, but think about bit-rot trying to make a nomadic usb-stick type system into a rolling-release model.
Generally making more than one wholesale system update is prone to bit-rot, and can provide support nightmares for the devs down the road.
Probably the best model for NomadBSDâs enironment is to simply save your phd thesis or other important data onto a separate device, and re-install each time a new version comes out.
This way, youâll have a new image you can make for friends or coworkers, which may have better support for new(er) hardware they may own out of the box.
If a rolling-release kind of thing on a fixed hard drive / ssd is desired, it might be best just to install FreeBSD itself, rather than NomadBSD.
My .02$ anywayâŚ
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