Hi all, In the past I had problems when updating an existing SUSE installation to a newer version (I think it was 8.0 to 8.3 back then). I therefore had to do a clean install, and then having to do all the setups for all the other things I had on the older version like Evolution. It is becoming quit a laborious exercise if there are a dozen or so stations to be updated. Is it advisable to update the present SUSE 10.0 systems to SUSE 10.1, and later to 10.2 in stead of each time a new install? Any experiences welcome. :-) Al
On Wednesday 06 September 2006 11:12, LLLActive@GMX.Net wrote:
In the past I had problems when updating an existing SUSE installation to a newer version (I think it was 8.0 to 8.3 back then). I therefore had to do a clean install, and then having to do all the setups for all the other things I had on the older version like Evolution. It is becoming quit a laborious exercise if there are a dozen or so stations to be updated. Is it advisable to update the present SUSE 10.0 systems to SUSE 10.1, and later to 10.2 in stead of each time a new install? Any experiences welcome.
Hi, Al! Almost anyone on this list will suggest to never to an upgrade and always do a clean install. If you follow conventional wisdom and keep /home on a separate partition (or second drive) then a clean install is almost always less painful than an update. Check the archives of this list for many such recommendations (not all of them are from me ;). -- ----- stephan@s11n.net http://s11n.net "...pleasure is a grace and is not obedient to the commands of the will." -- Alan W. Watts
On Wed, September 6, 2006 12:46 pm, stephan beal wrote: <snip>
Is it advisable to update the present SUSE 10.0 systems to SUSE 10.1, and later to 10.2 in stead of each time a new install? Any experiences welcome.
Hi, Al!
Almost anyone on this list will suggest to never to an upgrade and always do a clean install. If you follow conventional wisdom and keep /home on a separate partition (or second drive) then a clean install is almost always less painful than an update.
Check the archives of this list for many such recommendations (not all of them are from me ;).
Hear hear! I have just lived through this painful experience. I upgraded two machines - one from 9.2 to 10.1 and the other from 10.0 to 10.1 - both had their issues. In both instances, I ended up throwing in the towel and reinstalling 10.1 - I've been much happier. The only issue I'm having is a minor one with my KMail history.
From now on - the /home folder gets put on a seperate partition. -- Kai Ponte www.perfectreign.com || www.4thedadz.com
remember - a turn signal is a statement, not a request
LLLActive@GMX.Net schreef:
Hi all,
In the past I had problems when updating an existing SUSE installation to a newer version (I think it was 8.0 to 8.3 back then). I therefore had to do a clean install, and then having to do all the setups for all the other things I had on the older version like Evolution. It is becoming quit a laborious exercise if there are a dozen or so stations to be updated. Is it advisable to update the present SUSE 10.0 systems to SUSE 10.1, and later to 10.2 in stead of each time a new install? Any experiences welcome.
Well the universal answer to a question like this is: it depends. It depends mostly on what you have installed *on top* of the vanilla system. If you always went with a standard choice (be it default or expert) and have installed nothing extra but a few applications I'd say back up home and install a new system. If on the other hand you have customized your system a great deal it could be a good thing (tm) to upgrade. The trouble with that is, that you'll run into a lot of dependency problems and unfortunately the yast suggestions to handle these are mostly nonsensical. Especially they are nonsensical with respect to third party software that is declared taboo *ipso facto* even if there is a Suse upgrade available. So in that case you should know what you're doing. If you have no idea what you should do in the face of dependency problems in an upgrade you should do a new install. Also you should check configuration files that *should be* changed by the new install, but in fact won't be (also a Good Thing). I include a list of tips that I composed for upgrading from SuSE 9.0 to 9.3, but quite a few of them are generic. YMMV of course, and warranty up to the front door. :-) Traps and tips for upgrading to Suse 9.3 * Backup /home and other vital data * Never ever leave a conflict unresolved. In principle unprotect rather than remove. * After installation install all on-line updates including the multimedia patches. * If you want all video codecs still get libxine1 from packman. If you don't, DivX 5 doesn't work and maybe more. * Reconfigure your sound card. * If you upgrade from a 2.4 kernel run /sbin/lsusb. If nothing shows up whereas you have some peripherals on usb ports, check fstab for a line containing usbdevfs. Replace it with: usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0 * Run /etc/init.d/rpmconfigcheck and update config files if necessary (Admin guide pg 128-129) * Remove /var/lib/pin/ARCHIVES.gz and rerun pin. Finally: I once tried to upgrade from 7.2 to 9.0 and that was a disaster, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing wrt to the dependency conflicts. Older and wiser I upgraded from 9.0 to 9.3 and that went quite well apart from a few minor glitches. Since 9.3 has been rock solid and I haven't obtained any new hardware recently I haven't upgraded since. So I can't tell you about the idiosyncrasies of 10.0 and 10.1. Regards, -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704 "They say that a little knowledge is dangerous, but it isn't half as bad as a lot of ignorance." Terry Pratchett, Equal rites
Traps and tips for upgrading to Suse 9.3
* Backup /home and other vital data OK. I usually have my Data as a separate mount in my home directories (e.g. /home/user1/Data). I have tried using the old /home/user1 mapped on a separate partition on the new installation, but many applications
On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 16:36 +0200, Jos van Kan wrote: Hi Jos (dank u wel), Stephan and Kai, then have some problems with the configuration. Evolution in my case did not like the old /home/user1/.evolution of the previous installation. I ended up having to import everything by hand and soft link my default /home/user1/Documents to the /home/user1/Data/Documents. I would have liked to keep all the setup info in my applications after a new install. Is there a way to do that with a new installation?
* Never ever leave a conflict unresolved. In principle unprotect rather than remove. OK
* After installation install all on-line updates including the multimedia patches. * If you want all video codecs still get libxine1 from packman. If you don't, DivX 5 doesn't work and maybe more. Have you heard of this script? http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=43378
It is a RPM, which gave some dependency error if I can remember rightly, but I have used the earlier script version 43378-convienientsuse.kmdr (attachment didn't go through, max is 30k - I can PMail it to those interested). It worked very well on my home system (Purchased Novell SUSE 10.1) for DVD and general multi-media functions.
* Reconfigure your sound card. OK
* If you upgrade from a 2.4 kernel run /sbin/lsusb. OK
If nothing shows up whereas you have some peripherals on usb ports, check fstab for a line containing usbdevfs. Replace it with: usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0 OK
* Run /etc/init.d/rpmconfigcheck and update config files if necessary (Admin guide pg 128-129) OK
* Remove /var/lib/pin/ARCHIVES.gz and rerun pin. OK
Since 9.3 has been rock solid and I haven't obtained any new hardware recently I haven't upgraded since. So I can't tell you about the idiosyncrasies of 10.0 and 10.1.
OK My problem is that my brand new hardware's MoBo chipset and 2 onboard NIC's have problems with SuSE 9.3 that I used for a while on older hardware. With the installed 10.0 there are no problems at all, but I'd like to upgrade them 4 systems to at least 10.1 (because it should be more stable, as it apparently is the SLES 10 base). I will try your suggestions next week. First I will try an update from a system that is quite standard. I will pass on my experiences about an OpenSuse 10.0 downloaded version update to a Novell original purchased SUSE 10.1. On the side: Is it perhaps better to wait for 10.2? I have read many posts that had a thumbs down for 10.1. The systems must be done by the end of Dec. Then I want to go live with a new ERP on them as 2x2 HA (drbd & heartbeat) clusters in the first quarter '07. drbd runs faultlessly on two 10.0's since Feb '06. :-) Al
LLLActive@GMX.Net wrote:
On the side: Is it perhaps better to wait for 10.2? I have read many posts that had a thumbs down for 10.1. The systems must be done by the end of Dec. Then I want to go live with a new ERP on them as 2x2 HA (drbd & heartbeat) clusters in the first quarter '07. drbd runs faultlessly on two 10.0's since Feb '06.
If you want to build HA systems then you need to be sure the software is reliable. There's no point in having duplicated hardware etc if both boxes fall over in rapid succession due to some shared fault in the installed software. So if it was me, I'd be looking to use SLES for that situation rather than use point releases, especially new point releases. Cheers, Dave
participants (5)
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Dave Howorth -
Jos van Kan -
LLLActive＠GMX.Net -
PerfectReign -
stephan beal