A major design goal of the Updater Facility is to preserve the existing system’s configuration, data, and installed third-party software, while updating the ArcaOS code to the same release level as a new install with the same media.
As stated above, upon successful completion of an update, the system should be functionally equivalent to a fresh install of ArcaOS at that release level. This assumes that the candidate system was in a fully functional state (fully functional to the best ability of the previous ArcaOS release), and the ArcaOS layout itself was not sullied (e.g., the \sys\install directory tree was left intact from the previous installation, the volume layout was not manually changed, etc.). Any deviation from the Updater’s expectations and the chance of success is diminished.
On this page
Unexpected changes
You should review the CONFIG.SYS file for any changes which may have been made to PATH, LIBPATH, and other environment statements, such as TEMP, as well as any known-incompatible or non-optimal driver settings for the individual system. Note that some installers from third-party packages included with the ArcaOS update may assume default settings and may overwrite configured values.
See Section 6.1.1 of README.TXT in the root of the ArcaOS ISO or available online, here, for more details
Expected changes
While the updater does not in general install new applications or features which were not previously selected, there are exceptions to this rule.
New features
ISOFS and ISODrive
One exception is the addition of ISOFS and its accompanying ISODrive utility for mounting ISO images as virtual drives. ArcaOS 5.0 releases prior to 5.0.3 did not include this feature. A 5.0.4 and later update will add it to the system. ISODrive neatly integrates with the Arca Noae Removable Media Monitor XCenter widget, allowing you to unmount (logically eject) a mounted ISO. If the ISO is located on removable media, the widget will disallow unmounting of the physical device on which a mounted ISO is located until the ISO has been unmounted. ISODrive makes it easy to access software in the ArcaOS ISO for Selective Install or Selective Install for Networking, for example.
To mount an ISO, simply browse to it from the Drives object, and double-click. A dialog should be presented allowing you to choose a drive letter to assign to the virtual drive.
(ISOFS and ISODrive function independently of NetDrive, and the Removable Media Monitor XCenter widget has no control over the unmounting of NetDrive resources.)
Other system changes
Some desktop objects may have been shuffled into different places and have had their properties reset, such as the Trashcan. While the XCenter should retain its widget layout, it will be reset to open automatically. The Removable Media Monitor XCenter widget may not produce notifications until after a subsequent system restart.
The master system volume will be reset to the default level.
If the “Start screen saver on system startup” option was previously enabled, it may need to be re-enabled manually after the update. Other screen saver settings should be preserved.
There may some leftover files which have not been removed, notably, the \sys\doc\rxcrypt directory and its contents, even though the new rxcrypt package has been installed via RPM, placing its documentation under \usr\share\doc\rxcrypt-1.0.0 on the UNIXROOT volume. These leftovers may simply be removed.
Post-update tasks
You should review this section of the Post-Install Tips & Hints wiki page, as these items apply equally to updates as they do to fresh installations.
This entry last updated: by