[olug] Clean Upgrade using RPMS?

[Kenton Brede]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 12:18:59PM -0500, Daniel G. Linder wrote:
> CM Miller wrote:
> > Who has been sucessful in an rpm based upgraded using
> > rpm or whatever rpm application, and would like to
> > share with the group?
> 
> I'm agreeing with the rest of the group.  Sadly RPMs are not the
> end-all, be-all for upgrading a tweaked system.  It has been a long time
> since I used Debian, but I remember upgrading from one of the "stable"
> to an "unstable" series once and only had to reboot to get a new kernel
> installed.  Pretty slick.
> 
> I am thinking about re-installing a server that I have had up for some
> time and was thinking about writing a script (perl probably) that would
> take a list of all the files on the system (i.e. "find / -print") and
> cross-reference that with the RPM database, and then backup the changed
> and non-RPM files to another server.  It wouldn't be too hard to then
> keep a list of the RPMs from the old system and cross-reference the new
> RPMs on the freshly installed server.  Hey, this could be a neat hack!
> :)

I might be missing something here but -

You might be helpful to look at using "kickstart."
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/KickStart-HOWTO.html

$ rpm -qa
will also give you a list of the packages currently installed on your
system.  If you didn't know.
Kent

-- 
"I am always doing that which I can not do, 
   in order that I may learn how to do it." --Pablo Picasso