Upgrading Nitrux is an easy task. We even support two methods to achieve this, one using a utility specifically created for this purpose or by using Calamares—yes, you read that right.
In today’s tutorial, we’ll check how to do this.
Difficulty: ★☆☆☆☆
📜 Table of Contents
About Upgrades in Nitrux
Below is the information we’ve deemed important for users to understand about this distribution and its upgrade process.
- We aim to release new upgrade archives for the Nitrux Update Tool System during the first week of the month, usually the same week as the latest release. Sometimes, this period may extend for a couple more days. Either way, we will announce the availability of the update archive on our social media, chat groups, and the PSA section on this website.
- The update archives for the Nitrux Update Tool System and the utility are designed to upgrade only from the previous release to the latest, i.e., 3.4.0 to 3.4.1 or 3.4.1 to 3.5.0, etcetera. To upgrade from older installations, i.e., 3.4.0 to 3.5.0 see Upgrade using Live media (Calamares).
- On the topic of the updated archives, whenever a new archive is uploaded we delete the previous files. We do not keep a historical archive of these files or the ISOs online.
- Users must manually run the Nitrux Update Tool System to check for updates. The Nitrux Update Tool System will also not download any update archive in the background for “offline updates.” There’s no background process for this and the utility isn’t designed for this purpose. This also means that updates are not forced on the user; users are responsible for updating their installations on time.
Upgrade using the Nitrux Update Tool System
The Nitrux Update Tool System (nuts) is a utility designed to update Nitrux OS and provide a backup option for rollbacks.
⚠️ Important: The Nitrux Update Tool System is intended to work exclusively in Nitrux OS, and using this utility in other distributions will break them or not work at all. Please do not open issues regarding this use case; they will be closed.
The Nitrux Update Tool System (nuts) is a simple, minimalistic update and rollback utility. It performs three steps:
- It creates a backup of the root directory using SquashFS and the XFS partition using the XFS tools and stores them locally.
- Then, it downloads an OTA-style update file and updates the system using a custom AppImage.
- Depending on the situation, the utility uses ‘rsync’ and the locally generated SquashFS file or the XFS tools when restoring a backup.
The Nitrux Update Tool System will reboot the computer automatically five seconds after completing a task.
See the commands below to use the Nitrux Update Tool System.
sudo nuts update
- Updates the currently installed root using the specified media in nuts-query and backs up the current root directory and partition.
- 🔰 Information: The OTA archives for the Nitrux Update Tool System do not include updates to the NVIDIA proprietary driver. NVIDIA users must follow the alternative method described in our tutorial to upgrade the distribution; see Upgrade using Live media (Calamares).
- 🔰 Information: Depending on various factors, such as system specifications and Internet connection speed, the update process may take between 25 and 30 minutes to complete (during our tests using a virtual machine). Please be aware that the update process involves creating the XFS backup, compressing the XFS backup, creating the root directory SquashFS backup, and downloading and applying the OTA-style update file. Other factors can affect the completion time, such as connectivity to GitHub (and raw.githubusercontent.com) and SourceForge and its mirrors.
- 🔰 Information: If your computer can’t reach the domain raw.githubusercontent.com, you cannot proceed with the upgrade. We recommend using a VPN or a proxy or contacting your ISP if they block access to these domains; see our tutorial Filesystem, Security, Privacy, and Anonymization Features in Nitrux for more information about using VPNs and proxies. This is not a bug or issue with Nitrux or is caused by Nitrux.
sudo nuts restore
- Restores the backup of the root directory generated during the update.
sudo nuts rescue
- Restores the backup of the XFS root partition in case of an interrupted update.
- 🔰 Information: This operation is a special handling of an unforeseen event. If the update process were interrupted, the root would be inconsistent. That means the root is unusable, i.e., the user can’t access the GUI or, worse, a TTY, so the user can’t restore the SquashFS. This operation will allow the user to restore the root partition from a Live session. This operation does not replace restore; it exists if using restore is impossible. The user can only use this operation from a Live session.
sudo nuts self-update
- Updates the Nitrux Update Tool System and the configuration file using the Git branch set in the configuration file.
Upgrade using Live media (Calamares)
Using an installer like Calamares to “update” a distribution doesn’t occur to most people.
But we can do this by replacing only the old root partition with a new one. Think of it like having a directory with multiple text files [abc][abcd][abcxyz] and deleting only one of the files instead of the entire directory, and now you have [abc123][abcd][abcxyz]. Doing the procedure below wouldn’t be possible if the distribution was installed as a single partition, which is the case for most Linux distributions; that’s why Nitrux uses a custom partition layout and why we emphasize not using a single partition layout when installing the distribution initially.
Some might mistake this for “reinstalling.” But reinstalling would mean reusing the initial install media, like an ISO of version 2.9.0, resulting in the “new” root still being version 2.9.0. Nonetheless, we’re saying that if you used an ISO of version 2.9.0 for the initial installation and then used an ISO of version 2.9.1, deleted the old root, and created a new root, the new root, once installed, will be version 2.9.1.
To upgrade from previous versions of Nitrux using Calamares, do the following.
- Download and flash the latest ISO.
- 🔰 Information: We create new installation media every 30 days; users who prefer media to be available sooner (bi-weekly, weekly, daily, etc.) can contribute to this expense on OpenCollective.
- Boot to the Live session and start Calamares.
- After completing the locale, keyboard, and user configuration, select the option to do a “Manual partitioning.”
- Select and delete the previous installation root; do not delete or format other partitions unless desired; only select “Keep.”
- ⚠️ Important: Before proceeding, we can’t stress enough that users back up their home directory using Kup to a separate device (or cloud storage) if it is the case that the previous installation was done to a single partition instead of separate root and home (or other) partitions which we do not recommend.
- ⚠️ Important: We strongly discourage using an MBR (Master Boot Record) storage device when installing Nitrux due to the limitations of this type of partition table, i.e., MBR has a limit of four primary partitions. We strongly suggest using a different storage device to install Nitrux that does not use MBR, deleting the partition table, and using GPT (GUID Partition Table) instead. Alternatively, visit this link at AskUbuntu to learn how to convert the partition table from MBR to GPT without data loss.
- ⚠️ Important: Calamares fully supports using a GUID Partition Table for EFI/UEFI and Legacy BIOS firmware-type computers, as noted in the tables below. Also, be aware that deleting the partition table will delete the data on the storage device.
- Select the mount point of all partitions and options (where applicable).
- We recommend adding labels to the partitions. Our recommended partition layout is below.
- Optionally, choose to encrypt the whole system (or each partition individually).
- ⚠️ Important: Please be aware that the root directory is immutable, and any directory within the root will be read-only. Do not use a single partition layout.
- ⚠️ Important: When creating the EFI System Partition for Legacy BIOS devices, the partition size must be 8MiB.
- 🔰 Information: Calamares will continue to display a popup window to the user despite creating the partition in this size and adding the required flag. This is not a bug or issue with Nitrux or is caused by Nitrux; this is a bug in Calamares.
- 🔰 Information: The tables below assume the target device is an x64 (x86-64, or amd64) computer using Legacy BIOS, EFI, or UEFI firmware and a GPT partition table.
- 🔰 Information: While the (new) layout below is our recommendation, users can add almost any directory they want as a separate partition. However, the root and home must be separate due to the root directory’s immutability.
- ⚠️ Important: Do not add the directory /etc as a separate partition; otherwise, the system will be unbootable
- 🔰 Information: Please be aware that neither XFS nor F2FS partitions can’t be shrunk, only grown.
- The table below defines our partition layout for EFI or UEFI firmware-type computers that use storage devices using GPT (GUID Partition Table).
| Partition | Label | Mountpoint | Filesystem Type | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EFI System Partition | ESP | /boot/efi | fat32 | boot |
| root | NX_ROOT | / | xfs | none |
| home | NX_HOME | /home | f2fs | none |
| /var/lib | NX_VAR_LIB | /var/lib | f2fs | none |
| swap | SWAP | none (automatically setup) | linuxswap | none (automatically setup) |
- The table below defines our partition layout for Legacy BIOS firmware-type computers that use storage devices using GPT (GUID Partition Table).
| Partition | Label | Mountpoint | Filesystem Type | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EFI System Partition | – | – | unformatted | bios-grub |
| root | NX_ROOT | / | xfs | none |
| home | NX_HOME | /home | f2fs | none |
| /var/lib | NX_VAR_LIB | /var/lib | f2fs | none |
| swap | SWAP | none (automatically setup) | linuxswap | none (automatically setup) |
- Finally, proceed with the installation.
That’s it; this concludes today’s tutorial.