How do I update Qiime2 in VirtualBox?

[SaraR (Sara)]

I downloaded and installed the Qiime2 in Virtualbox late last year, but then one of the release announcements mentioned that there would be new releases on a monthly basis.

How do I update qiime2 within the VirtualBox guest, so that I don’t have to uninstall and install each new release from scratch (as individual new VB guests)?

I’m haven’t used conda etc in the past, so painfully basic instructions are good!

Thanks!

[Kalakan]

Dear
I need help to install the QIIME 2 Core VirtualBox Image using Virtualbox. I installed successfully the 2017.11 version. I just looked this site https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.12/install/virtual/virtualbox/, but it doesn’t good instruction. Is there a way to update the old version without installing again the new version. thanks, Kalakan

[ebolyen (Evan Bolyen)]

Hi @SaraR and @Kalakan!

@SaraR

I downloaded and installed the Qiime2 in Virtualbox late last year, but then one of the release announcements mentioned that there would be new releases on a monthly basis.

Depending on what version you downloaded, these instructions may or may not work. If you see something like (qiime2-2017.X) at the beginning of your terminal prompt, then this should work. Otherwise, you should download the most recent image.

@Kalakan

Is there a way to update the old version without installing again the new version.

Yes, although the q2studio icon won't update, so you'll be stuck with whatever the original QIIME 2 version was for that.

@SaraR

I’m haven’t used conda etc in the past, so painfully basic instructions are good!

You should be able to just open a terminal and follow the normal installation docs! (Make sure you pick the linux file and not the OS X one.) Each installation ends up in its own environment (with the exception of very old VBox images). So you don't have to do anything special.

You can technically then use source activate and source deactivate to swap between environments, your original still exists and will be activated by default, but more likely, you'll want to edit your $HOME/.bashrc file to use the brand new environment by default.

Look for this line in your $HOME/.bashrc file:

source activate qiime2-2017.11

(Or whatever particular version was in your original VBox distribution)

And replace that with the version you installed, for example:

source activate qiime2-2017.12

Now whenever you open a new terminal, you'll have your brand new QIIME 2 environment ready to go.

Once again, this will not work for q2studio (the little QIIME 2 icon in your sidebar).

Let me know if that makes sense!

[SaraR (Sara)]

Thanks!
I had some issues with the very beginning (it wasn’t having any of the ‘conda update conda’ bit…), but (hopefully) sorted that and the rest went well. So far it looks like I managed in the end.

Cheers,
Sara