[Info-vax] Alpha V8.4-2 distribution

[David Froble]

Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
> Den 2016-06-19 kl. 05:51, skrev David Froble:
>> It's Saturday night, or I'd ask VSI.  So it's your lucky day to 
>> consider my
>> question.
>>
>> Got the Alpha 8.4-2 evaluation kit.  Unzipped it on my Alpha, got an iso
>> image, which I was able to mount using LD.  The kit will work as an 
>> upgrade
>> to V8.3, or later, but will not (according to the release notes) 
>> install on
>> an empty disk. No problem, made an image copy of my 8.3 system disk.
>>
>> Now, it's been a LONGGGG time since I did any installations / 
>> upgrades, and
>> I'm not sure what can be done.  What I remember is you boot off the
>> distribution media and use the menu to install or upgrade.  Can't boot 
>> off
>> an LD container, since it needs VMS up before LD works.  Chicken and egg
>> issues ....
>>
>> What I think I need to do is backup /image the LD container onto a spare
>> disk. Can't use the optical drive.  The local crumudgen got a good laugh
>> when I told him I was trying to read a DVD and finally realized the Alpha
>> had a CD drive. Gonna attempt to fix that next week.  Don't think the
>> distribution will fit on a CD.
> 
> The original download did not fit on a CD since there was a large file
> stored in the ISO as two copies by mistake. I took that away and re-built
> the ISO and my ISO did then fit on a CD.
> 
> VSI also release an updated ISO shortly after this error was reported,
> and it is now "589.5 MB" according to the download page.
> 
> Do you still have the origanal ISO? That was around 1 GB, I think...
> If so, just fetch the latest copy from VSI.

I just got this from VSI on Friday.

> Anyway...
> 
> If you have a spare disk you can copy the ISO to that one and boot from
> it. Philip described that in another post.
> 
> And you should be able to either INSTALL or UPGRADE using this dist,
> either from a spare disk or from a CD.

Well, I don't know what you CAN do, but the info from VSI is that you cannot 
install, only upgrade V8.4 or later.  PAK is good only until September.

> Regards, Jan-Erik.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>>
>> Anyway, yeah, I'll get around to it, my question.  Can I upgrade VMS 
>> while
>> running on a system disk, or do I need to have distribution media I can
>> boot from?
>