Alan Horn wrote:
In my experience, a fresh reinstall is generally better than an upgrade.
I prefer to :
o backup data
o wipe out OS
o remake filesystems
o install new system
o apply local config and app management from central mgmt server
o restore data
That's the best way to do , but some people still preffer to simply
upgrade , even if it can break things... The fresh reinstall also has
the benefit of making you remmember how you configured everything (which
helps in case of problems) and why you configured in a certain way
(making you rethink your decisions. maybe you've learnt something new
since your last install and now there's a better way to configure the
same thing).
The question then becomes of course; at what point should incremental
upgrades be deferred in place of a complete release. That often seems
to be a decision best left to the core development team for an OS.
I believe that FC2 is the perfect example: we're gonna have major
changes on kernel (changes from 2.4 to 2.6 , SELinux support) , changes
on perl (including changes on its packaging) , python , removing OSS
support and adding ALSA support as the default sound system and many
others I dont remmember now. If we were only going to have a change in a
specific package , then upgrade would be the best option.
--
Pedro Macedo
