On Fri, 2006-03-10 at 20:11 -0500, Jack Howarth wrote: > To clarify, on MacOS X the archive and install method makes > an archive of all user accounts and applications. It effectively > then moves of all the system related directories aside into a > subdirectory in a Previous Systems folder so that all the system > related directories are reinstalled cleanly. Afterwards, the user > accounts, network settings and applications are restored. It actually > works pretty well. The only thing that typically needs to be > reinstalled are things like Norton Antivirus or Cisco VPN that > installs kernel extensions. > While I can understand that the rpm system probably makes it > impossible to archive and restore 'applications', Fedora could be > modified to allow for the user accounts to be archived and restored > after 'clean' install on the existing partitions. That alone with be > a great improvement. ---- if /home is on a separate partition, there is no need to deal with any of that....just leave the /home partition alone with the 'upgrade'. You should note though that things have been changing in the attributes of the filesystems such as SELinux and ext3 and extended attributes which an 'upgrade' may leave less than optimal while a completely clean install obviously has no obstacles creating a house in order. While a proprietary vendor such as Apple or Microsoft might make some compromises to performance or features to minimize the impact on their customers, Linux, especially Fedora is trying to push the technology forward, sometimes at an inconvenience - perhaps they would make things a little less inconvenient if they needed to rely upon the revenues of happy clients. As for MacOSX and how it relates...there are a number of programs (more than Norton AV and Cisco...print drivers, Quark for example) that put stuff in /Library that won't be there on a 'archive and install' and to be honest...I don't recall the 'archive and install' returning any applications...it just keeps them in the 'previous installation directory'. The drag and drop installation methodology of things like Firefox, Thunderbird, Microsoft Office is nice though. When you are talking about 'Fedora' upgrades...each upgrade has had a newer version of glibc which pretty much obviates the ability to use binaries from earlier install. It's not really the rpm system that has a problem with the upgrades. Craig
