upgrading Mandrake (Mandriva) 10.2 --> 2006.0 -- difficult?
F. Baker
to the 2006.0 version?
Is this as simple as inserting the installation CD and selecting
"Upgrade" somewhere?
Will it respect boot-files and scripts I've set up? Will it overwrite
installed packages (rpms) that I don't want to change?
Wil 3rd-party applications work OK after?
Will it respect partitioning?
Am I better off doing a clean install? I don't want to
take the difficult route, but I neither want to take the easy route and
find that 100 things don't work anymore after the upgrade.
Thank in advance to anyone who can help.
Unruh
>What is entailed in upgrading from Mandrake (Mandriva) Linux 10.2
>to the 2006.0 version?
>Is this as simple as inserting the installation CD and selecting
>"Upgrade" somewhere?
Yes.
>Will it respect boot-files and scripts I've set up? Will it overwrite
In general yes. Mind you some config files could have changed substantially
and it will retain the old one.
>installed packages (rpms) that I don't want to change?
Yes. How does it know what packages you do not want to change? It will
upgrade all packages it knows about. If your package does not have an
upgrade on the CD, it will not be upgraded.
If the name has changed (gimp2 to gimp for example) the old one will not be
removed. This can have weird consequences. A good idea is to do
rpm -Va|grep '^..5' >/tmp/verify
and then test all of the files if they are members of two (or more)
packages. If they are, remove the old one and reinstall the new one with
rpm --force
>Wil 3rd-party applications work OK after?
Depends on what they relied on. If they worked by using a bug in a system
library, no.
>Will it respect partitioning?
Yes.
>Am I better off doing a clean install? I don't want to
>take the difficult route, but I neither want to take the easy route and
>find that 100 things don't work anymore after the upgrade.
Most things will work. You may find the occasional problem ( primarily
because of package name changes so your icon points to say gimp2 when it no
longer exists)
Bit Twister
> What is entailed in upgrading from Mandrake (Mandriva) Linux 10.2
> to the 2006.0 version?
Either boot from cd or change your urpm mirror to a 2006 official
directory.
> Is this as simple as inserting the installation CD and selecting
> "Upgrade" somewhere?
Process/steps Yes.
You will need to pick/set your mirror after install anyway and get the
2006.0 updates and bring your kernel up to 2.6.12-24mdk.
> Will it respect boot-files and scripts I've set up? Will it overwrite
> installed packages (rpms) that I don't want to change?
> Wil 3rd-party applications work OK after?
> Will it respect partitioning?
>
> Am I better off doing a clean install? I don't want to
> take the difficult route, but I neither want to take the easy route and
> find that 100 things don't work anymore after the upgrade.
Usually, major version numbers 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, 2006, 2007 require
recompile of all the libraries.
You could have old services/daemons still running which have been
replaced by services/daemons which have new names and work differently
but fight over the same resource.
Applications can change keywords used in configuration files. Old
keywords may cause new code to fail. Some applications worked better
when you deleted their .app_name_rc file and recreate it fresh.
Applications can be rewritten and installed with new names. You might
run old application and dinkup configuration files.
Applications get repackaged into new rpms, you will not get the new
apps. Obsolete libraries/files left on the disk.
I found that it works better when you do a format and a clean install
when going from 1 major release (8.x/2206) level to another (9.x/2007).
Keeps the problems of incompatiable libraries from helping you into the
ditch.
I have see where some people had problems upgrading between minor
release 9.0 to 9.1. Their problems went away after they did a clean
install.
I usually keep a seperate ~6gig partition for testing new releases. I
have seperate /accounts directory for the users and seperate partition
/local for doc, src, bin, .... for things I install later.
I create the users in /home and copy /accounts/users to /home for
testing. If the new release works, I change users /home to /accounts
in the new release's partition /etc/passwd.
Once you are on the new release, the old release's partition
can be used to practice on new application/installation/upgrades testing
before dinking up the _production_ copy.