HOWTO use Xdelta to upgrade isos and apps

How to do things, solutions, recipes, tutorials
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
01micko
Posts: 8741
Joined: Sat 11 Oct 2008, 13:39
Location: qld
Contact:

HOWTO use Xdelta to upgrade isos and apps

#1 Post by 01micko »

Hello everybody

As of the advent of Woof, The Puppy Builder, BarryK has included Xdelta, file difference manager in all Puppies and Quirkies.

Barry will often upload a .delta file for upgrading an iso from one version to another, for example, Barry put up Quirky-005, then a week later Quirky-006 and also a .delta file to build the 006 iso from the 005 iso and the .delta file.. make sense? It saves you downloading a full iso of say 100MB, the delta may only be 3MB.

The reverse is also true. You can produce a .delta file from 2 different .iso images. Of course they need to be closely related, as in say from a beta1 to a beta2 of the same distro. I produced an iso file and uploaded it of Dpup by grabbing the .delta file.. when gposil was getting low on bandwidth.

Delta can also be used for apps, in fact any single file, but here we will only deal with iso images. For those not too sure, an iso image is the usual form of Puppy when you download it in official form or as a puplet.

________________


What to do... for upgrading an iso image.
  • * Download the correct .delta file for the iso image you want to upgrade:eg if you have pup_stardust-005.iso get pup_stardust-005.iso:pup_stardust-006.iso.delta. Of course check the checksum

    Code: Select all

    md5sum pup_stardust-005.iso:pup_stardust-006.iso.delta
    .This will produce a long string of alpha and numeric characters, it must be exactly the same as the one posted by the developer.
    * Save the original .iso and the new .delta in the same directory, this is not essential but will save some searching time
    * Simply click the .delta file and the Xdelta gui will appear
    Image
    * Click GENERATE
    * You should see a green splash screen indicating that the new file is generated and there will be a new .iso file in the same directory as the .delta file. Again, compare the checksum with the one provided by the developer. All should be well.
    * You can now proceed to burn your new iso image with your favourite burning software.
Note: If the generation of the new iso fails, then the chucksum of either the old iso or the delta file must be wrong. Please ensure you have un corrupted files with the md5sum utility.

For developers...
Providing a .delta file is a user friendly way of spreading your puplet. I know I use them whenever they are available, great for dial-up users too.
  • * Open the Xdelta, file difference manager software from Menu >> Utility >> Xdelta
    * Drag the old iso image to the first entry field in the Xdelta gui.
    * Drag the new iso image to the second entry field.
    * Hit GENERATE.
    * the new .delta file is created.
    * do a checksum, then upload to your online storage location.
________________________

Xdelta is available for MS windows, however it is reported on Barry's Blog that the .delta files in puppy are failing on windows, or in a dos environment.. This is due to the "delimiter" being used. In future versions, Barry is changing the delimiter from ":" to "___" (three underscores).

________________________

If you don't have Xdelta in your Puppy the you can grab it from here.

_________________

Important note: If the delta file was created with the new xdelta gui, the file wil have three underscores as the delimiter. Most will only have the old xdelta which will not produce the correct filename of, for example, "pup_stardust-012.iso" but "newfile.iso" . If you have already done this then it should be ok to rename the "newfile.iso" to "pup_stardust-012.iso".

eg: To get around this remame pup_stardust-011.iso___pup_stardust-012.iso.delta to pup_stardust-011.iso:pup_stardust-012.iso.delta replacing "___" with " : ".

___________________

Attached is the latest xdelta_gui written by BarryK, dated 20100131. Just gunzip it in /usr/sbin and make sure it is executable

Code: Select all

mv /root/my-documents/xdelta_gui.gz /usr/sbin/xdelta_gui.gz
gunzip /usr/sbin/xdelta_gui.gz
chmod 755 /usr/sbin/xdelta_gui
where, /root/my-documents is where you may have saved the file after download. Change this to suit.

NOTE: This depends on "xdelta3", type "which xdelta3" in a terminal. If you have it then there will be output of something like "/sbin/xdelta3". It is in all woof built pups and quirkies.

______________________


Cheers and enjoy,

01micko
Attachments
xdelta_gui.gz
(2.91 KiB) Downloaded 1328 times
Puppy Linux Blog - contact me for access

User avatar
Max Headroom
Posts: 421
Joined: Wed 28 Jun 2006, 07:17
Location: GodZone Kiwi
Contact:

Missing xdelta3 Dependency Please Help 01micko

#2 Post by Max Headroom »

Turns Out I've just Found Out that I Actually had 2 Missing Dependencies, the 1st part I've Sucksessfully been able 2 Resolve via PPM,

But I'm Still Stuck w/ xdelta3 Missing Dependency, Even tho NOPQ has it Builtin, Wot's more I've also installed xdelta_gui.gz & Both of these appear in the Utility menu.

But when I Run the Puppy Dependency Checker on Me NVidia Driver Package, eMerald, Compiz, MYSQL, QtLibs & libgnomeprint Every time it says I'm Missing xdelta3.

Please Help!!!

User avatar
stiginge
Posts: 420
Joined: Thu 22 Mar 2007, 10:10
Location: Kerry, Ireland

#3 Post by stiginge »

I've done the steps as outlined, checked md5sum ok, and at the end I'm told by xdelta "success" that the new iso has been created.

Code: Select all

SUCCESS! /tmp/wary-5.1.1.57.iso generated
However there is no such file at this location, after refreshing rox.

Within the /tmp folder there is a file named xdelta_err which countains 1 sentence:

Code: Select all

xdelta3: target window checksum mismatch: Unknown error 4294949584
So I don't seem to be achieved my objectives unfortunately! Would anybody be familiar with this issue?
Buy silver, crash JPMorgan

User avatar
stiginge
Posts: 420
Joined: Thu 22 Mar 2007, 10:10
Location: Kerry, Ireland

#4 Post by stiginge »

Hello?
Buy silver, crash JPMorgan

User avatar
01micko
Posts: 8741
Joined: Sat 11 Oct 2008, 13:39
Location: qld
Contact:

#5 Post by 01micko »

Hello stiginge,

Hmm.. never seen that issue.

Are you performing the operation (generation) inside a Pupsave file? It is possible that room runs out to complete the operation. If so I suggest you put the original iso and the delta file in the same partition outside of a pupsave and try again. Even if it's a full install I would try this too.

HTH
Puppy Linux Blog - contact me for access

User avatar
stiginge
Posts: 420
Joined: Thu 22 Mar 2007, 10:10
Location: Kerry, Ireland

#6 Post by stiginge »

Hi Micko

I can't seem to find the correct delta file. I'm wanting to go from 5.1.1.56 to 5.1.2...and have looked at ibiblio here http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/wary-5 ... lta_files/
to no avail.
Buy silver, crash JPMorgan

User avatar
DaveS
Posts: 3685
Joined: Thu 09 Oct 2008, 16:01
Location: UK

#7 Post by DaveS »

Is it possible to extract a delta file?
Spup Frugal HD and USB
Root forever!

Post Reply