[olug] Clean Upgrade using RPMS?

[Christopher Cashell]

This gets a little bit Off Topic from the original topic, but I think
it's relevant here. ;-)

At Wed, 10 Sep 03, Unidentified Flying Banana Nick Walter, said:
> I've long operated by the rule "Never do an operating system upgrade". 
> I have *never* seen an O/S upgrade program that did the job right.  They
> all work fine if you have an absolutely stock unmodified installation of
> the old O/S, but who has that?

Interesting.  Ever since I've discovered Debian, I've operated by the
rule, "Never do an Operating System reinstall". ;-)

My primary server, nexus.zyp.org, is currently running Debian "Woody"
3.0, with some packages from the forthcoming "Sarge" 3.1.  Before this,
it ran Debian "Potato" 2.2.  Before that it ran Debian "Slink" 2.1.
Before that it ran Debian "Hamm" 2.0.  Before that it ran Debian "Bo"
1.3.

That's what was originally installed on it. . . in 1997.

And every new release has been upgraded in-place, without a reinstall.
They generally didn't even require a reboot. ;-)

I've never actually reinstalled the machine, since that initial install.
I just change a few lines in /etc/apt/sources.list, run "apt-get update
&& apt-get upgrade", and wait for a little while.  I'll admit that I
have had a few minor issues at various points, but I've never had an
upgrade that wasn't finished within a few hours, with everything up and
running again.

And my machine is anything but unmodified.  Luckily, most major
non-Debian changes are kept in /usr/local, which is considered inviolate
by Debian and it's packages.

> Nowadays, if I need a newer O/S on a box I back up the important data
> and config and reformat the drives in preparation for a clean install. 
> This isn't a Linux specific rule either, I've use this technique for
> Windows and various *nixes.

I always keep frequent backups of all data and config files,
particularly before doing a major OS upgrade, but I've rarely had need
to actually use them.

I know some of you may discount my e-mail as a pro-Debian spiel, but I
honestly think this is where Debian beats out every other distribution
I've tried.  Once it's installed, you never need to reinstall.  It just
keeps on chugging.  Difficulties with upgrade re-installations are what
originally drove me away from Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware.

> Nick Walter

-- 
| Christopher
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| A: No.                                         |
| Q: Should I include quotations after my reply? |
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