On Fri, 2004-03-12 at 20:20, Timothy Murphy wrote: > Michael A. Peters wrote: > > > Generally when upgrading Linux it is best to do a fresh install of the > > new operating system. This is because of the libraries primarily. > > [snip] > Which libraries exactly? > I just compared the libraries on the computer I upgraded to FC-1 from RH-9 > with the one I installed FC-1 on > (both having been brought up2date). > While I didn't make a careful comparison, > I couldn't see any difference in the libraries > (except one or two I'd installed myself). > > Are you claiming that there is a problem with libraries if you upgrade? > How do you know, if you never upgrade yourself? > > I've always upgraded from RH-7 onwards (possibly earlier), > and I've never had any "library problem" of the sort you describe. > (I had to install on the computer mentioned above > because of a hardware failure.) > > For some reason this issue -- installation versus upgrading -- > seems to bring out the dogmatists, > most of whom as far as I can see have never actually tried both methods, > but still seem sure which is best. > > -- > Timothy Murphy > e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie > tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 > s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland I agree with Timothy. I have performed upgrades plenty of times. On one of my machines, 4 out of 5 of my installations were upgrades. I had the followig upgrade/install history for this machine: RH 4.1: Fresh install RH 4.2: Upgrade RH 5.1: Fresh install RH 6.1: Upgrade RH 7.1: Upgrade RH 9.0: Upgrade I did have a problem once when upgrading from RH 6.2 to RH 7.1. Some init.d links changed between those releases and the 7.1 installer didn't update my 6.2 links correctly, or at all, and RH 7.1 wouldn't boot after the installer rebooted. I had to use a rescue disk and redo the links manually. Luckily, I had a fresh install of 7.1 at work so I could obtain the correct symbolic links and fix my home machine. At the time, I only had one machine. These days, I have 4 desktops so I won't be in the same situation, if a problem happens again. As for the libraries, I had no problems with libraries not being upgraded after an upgrade. Mostly, you may have to fix some configuration files but RH neatly saves them off to a ".save" file so that you can compare and fix. However, most of the time, upgrading has been much easier for me. I must admit that I'm more knowledgeable than the average user so I can fix things that break or make manual changes to my current system that will make the upgrade work smoothly. For example, I recall the time when RedHat changed RPM in some way that required one to rebuild the RPM database and install new RPM packages. I was able to follow the instructions for my RH 6.x machine in preparation for upgrading to RH 7.x. In general, however, upgrading can work smoothly for most people, as long as there are no radical changes in adjacent releases of the distribution. -- Bruce W. Bigby, http://home.rochester.rr.com/bigbyofrocny Don't be fooled by sale pitches. The only money that you save is money that you keep. Anything less is a deception. PGP key at http://pgp.mit.edu
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