... > In my experience, it is far, far safer to re-install from > scratch rather > than trying to do an update. All one has to do is ensure that > your /home > is > not overwritten or formated and one does this when the install gets to > the > place where partitioning method is being requested : go for "custom" > then select those partitions to format and mount, leaving /home > unaffected but the mount > point set up. ... The reinstall is cleaner, however, it can be more work. If you have several users, you will need to preserve your /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow entries for the system. If you are using samba as a PDC, you will need to hang on to some of the files from /etc/samba. Your web server configuration may also have to be redone or at least redirected to the partition where it the configuration files are located. Any automounter config files will need to be fixed up. I am sure I am not remembering everything from my list. My suggestion is to take a tar of /etc and put it somewhere safe. I have also seen it recommended to save the output from rpm -qa. Then try the upgrade. If something goes seriously wrong, you can do the clean install and you can dig the information you need out of the saved /etc. It kind of depends upon how much setup work you have done that would have to be redone. If this is a simple desktop running no special services, then the upgrade does not buy you much. One more thing, before a reinstall check to make sure you did not leave anything important in /root (root's home directory). Bob Styma
