How to migrate Hyperbola to Parabola (GNU/Linux-libre)

Warning & Acknowledgement

This guide is based on wiki.Hyperbola.info: Migrate your Parabola GNU/Linux-libre to Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre by simple analogy. It is untested, yet, for my purpose only. So it can damage your system. Back up your data.

Install Parabola keyring and mirror list

Disable signature verification manually by modifying the line in /etc/pacman.conf:

RemoteFileSigLevel = Never

Install keyring and mirror list for free repositories in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:

# pacman -U https://www.parabola.nu/packages/libre/any/parabola-keyring/download/

# pacman -U https://www.parabola.nu/packages/libre/any/pacman-mirrorlist/download/

Reenable signature verification in /etc/pacman.conf:

RemoteFileSigLevel = Required

Rename mirrorlist.pacnew as mirrorlist:

# cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.pacnew /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Add Parabola repositories

Add every lines about libre, java, libre-multilib, pcr, kernels, cross, nonprism in /etc/pacman.conf since Parabola have more repos. See Repositories article for further info.

You can use Parabola default pacman.conf files for i686 and x86_64 as references.

Replace Hyperbola packages with Parabola ones

Clean the pacman cache:

# pacman -Scc

Force the database sync:

# pacman -Syy

Update to added repos packages:

# pacman -S pacman

# pacman -Suu

If you want to ignore extra prompts and accept all confirmations over replaced packages, you can optionally use --noconfirm option.

Update bootloader configuration

Please update either GRUB or Syslinux, 'but not both', as it would cause a kernel panic.

GRUB

For GRUB regenerate your grub.cfg file running:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Check https://wiki.Parabola.nu/GRUB for more information.

Syslinux

Since Parabola is not a long-term support distro like Hyperbola, linux-libre-lts is not default kernel. Manually change following lines in /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg to reflect change:

DEFAULT parabola
 
LABEL parabola
    MENU LABEL Parabola GNU/Linux-libre
    LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux-libre
    …
    INITRD ../initramfs-linux-libre.img

LABEL parabolafallback
    MENU LABEL Parabola GNU/Linux-libre Fallback
    LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux-libre
    …
    INITRD ../initramfs-linux-libre-fallback.img

Ellipses … mean unchanged lines like     APPEND root=/dev/sda2 ro etc.

Alternatively you can remove the configuration file and reinstall syslinux.

Check https://wiki.Parabola.nu/Syslinux#Configuration for more information

Other bootloaders

Check https://wiki.Parabola.nu/Category:Boot_loaders (or https://wiki.ArchLinux.org/index.php/Category:Boot_loaders) for more information.

Complete the migration

Restart your system – it should boot into Parabola.