On 2013-12-09 13:36, C wrote:

Off list reply... since it's not really important to the Factory list.

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System 2 is very difficult to upgrade, and for all the work it takes to sort out the endless issues, it's easier, cleaner and infinitely faster to backup, format the root partition, and reinstall. On these systems, I'm up and running again in 10 minutes, and spend maybe 30 minutes re-adding the repos and reinstalling 3rd party apps.

It takes me weeks to install fresh with absolutely everything configured and tested. Things which are configured by root, not user, and thus do not reside on the home partition.

For a "home" single user system? Then isn't that more likely to be the System 1 config in that high level example? The System 2 config I'm thinking of that I've had endless pain and sorrow with upgrading is down to the long list of non-default repos I enable on my home desktop. The server systems upgrade smoothly because they are running the basics, nothing too alien.

No, it is an hybrid. It is a certainly a desktop machine, but I use services like in a server for learning stuff. For instance, email is not handled by kmail or thunderbird, but fetchmail, postfix, amavis, spamassassin, procmail, dovecot... the full lot. I have ftp server, http, mysql, ntp, nfs, smb, leafnode, etc. More that I forget about. Of course, it is such a long time because I don't seat straight to configure everything in one go, full time. I have to do other things in between. For me it is simpler and faster to upgrade. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 12.3 x86_64 "Dartmouth" at Telcontar)