[opensuse] Some questions about upgrade and update
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I'd like to know your opinion about upgrade vs. new installation. I know, that a new installation is the sure way, but what if the place or the architecture of an application's in-home config file changes. It could be resolved by the updater, but what if I created a new installation? Or this situation is absolutely unreal? What can go wrong while an upgrade? My other problem is about /etc. Should I copy the old /etc to the new installation, or should I reconfigure everything, or should I overlook every files of /etc and decide what to do one by one? The /etc question is not straightforward for me in case of a normal update neither. I used Gentoo at the past. In Gentoo the config files have special handling, when your updating procedure try to update a config file, then the new version is copied next to the old version like {&CONFIG_FILE}_001, and you can diff the two versions and do what you want. How SUSE handles these situations? Finally a quite newbie question. Under SUSE how I can "export and import" the packages I have between an old and a new installation? TIA. Tamas Sarga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFID0KKsuVyj8v2Zy4RAoRWAJsHAcH06ay8LPBsryHlew0PEdbNUQCffhNL o1jbgJJQwmD+bBBOf08kFOE= =HE4P -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2008-04-23 at 16:07 +0200, Tamas Sarga wrote:
Hi,
I'd like to know your opinion about upgrade vs. new installation.
Each one has his own opinion. You just have to browse the archives and find hundreds (literally) of them. I always upgrade.
What can go wrong while an upgrade?
Missing packages, services that do not work properly till you configure them again, because of the changes... nothing unsolvable with some patience.
The /etc question is not straightforward for me in case of a normal update neither. I used Gentoo at the past. In Gentoo the config files have special handling, when your updating procedure try to update a config file, then the new version is copied next to the old version like {&CONFIG_FILE}_001, and you can diff the two versions and do what you want. How SUSE handles these situations?
The old config would be renamed as *.rpmorig, or the new one *.rpmnew. There is a script that lists them, but there has been a change here and I don't know where you will see it. A few versions back it run on every boot. Now I think it runs afer installing something, as part of the suseconfig script. On a few cases the installer handles them nicely and you don't have to do anything.
Finally a quite newbie question. Under SUSE how I can "export and import" the packages I have between an old and a new installation?
Yes, there is such a feature somewhere, but I don't remember right now :-? Maybe it is autoyast, maybe as part of yast backup/restore. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFID02+tTMYHG2NR9URAluTAKCFp+hX09Ba0wJk0nHW5wbMSLhK+ACfRPEi 5kNLKGy2Ip6bD1SP2Q0o7To= =E3YK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Carlos E. R. wrote:
The Wednesday 2008-04-23 at 16:07 +0200, Tamas Sarga wrote:
Hi,
I'd like to know your opinion about upgrade vs. new installation.
Each one has his own opinion. You just have to browse the archives and find hundreds (literally) of them.
I always upgrade.
And mine is I never upgrade. Just make sure you save the data you need and then do a fresh install. I've never been bitten by a missing package, etc.. Carlos has had good luck with the upgrade, I haven't. If your data is backed up, it is really a "who cares" issue. If the upgrade bombs, the just wipe it out and do a fresh install. All your data is perfectly backed up and safe -- right? -- David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 David C. Rankin wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
The Wednesday 2008-04-23 at 16:07 +0200, Tamas Sarga wrote:
Hi,
I'd like to know your opinion about upgrade vs. new installation.
Each one has his own opinion. You just have to browse the archives and find hundreds (literally) of them.
I always upgrade.
And mine is I never upgrade. Just make sure you save the data you need and then do a fresh install. I've never been bitten by a missing package, etc.. Carlos has had good luck with the upgrade, I haven't. If your data is backed up, it is really a "who cares" issue. If the upgrade bombs, the just wipe it out and do a fresh install. All your data is perfectly backed up and safe -- right?
In my case I now try to make at least two different copies of any data on at least two different media formats or locations (the number of occasions I have been caught out by newer versions of software not liking older data formats, media or device failures, or other interesting surprises is rather more than I like to think about). I would generally prefer to prepare a specific validated backup set as a preparation for the upgrade/install as a fallback option in case the regular backup is inadequate. (Often this the moment one discovers the things that the regular backup procedures were missing for one reason or another). With things like database and subversion full dumps are a good idea, file level restore probably will work but I would not rely on it to. Then perform an upgrade, and if that fails installation from scratch is the option of last resort. If you have a lot of stuff (e.g. source code ,home built apps and rpms, and applications that are not part of the distribution) installed the install from scratch option only really has one major advantage (clearing out the dead wood). If the update fails, hopefully this will be the only opportunity one will get to test out how good your backup procedure really is... :-) If you are in the position to have a spare box to do a test run on, so much the better, one can probably work out which approach is going to give the least pain and what the likely gotchas are going to be. - -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIEEooasN0sSnLmgIRAk8oAKCJDT1knoFzlF54R+pFX3kdu4BwMACfcBfO u1oqYrL+xNsCXwjESdEGfQU= =26/+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2008-04-24 at 02:19 -0500, David C. Rankin wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
Each one has his own opinion. You just have to browse the archives and find hundreds (literally) of them.
I always upgrade.
And mine is I never upgrade. Just make sure you save the data you need and then do a fresh install. I've never been bitten by a missing package, etc.. Carlos has had good luck with the upgrade, I haven't. If your data is backed up, it is really a "who cares" issue. If the upgrade bombs, the just wipe it out and do a fresh install. All your data is perfectly backed up and safe -- right?
Of course I always do a full backup before any kind of upgrade/install ;-) If the upgrade bombs, I can restore and retry, knowing where it failed; install fresh, having access to all my old settings; and if the new one also bombs, restore the old and keep using it. Some people have to main partitions, one for the old, one for the new. The next cycle, the new becomes the new-old, and the old is installed fresh to become the new-new. This is what I would do on a server, if I can't install a new complete server. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIEH4htTMYHG2NR9URAhlXAJ9GHSc9wsQuRqfPnZ7TRVWxoCrSLQCfWXtp HqmovQ6IjgGt78AiSAjxwac= =ANuw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Carlos E. R. a écrit :
Some people have to main partitions, one for the old, one for the new. The next cycle, the new becomes the new-old, and the old is installed fresh to become the new-new.
exactly. It's the only safe system. and if ever the current one crashes, the old is still there This is what I would do on a server, if I
can't install a new complete server.
not practicable, it needs a reboot. for a server you have to use two machines (even an old one as backup) jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Tamas Sarga wrote:
Hi,
I'd like to know your opinion about upgrade vs. new installation. I know, that a new installation is the sure way, but what if the place or the architecture of an application's in-home config file changes. It
Something like that happens more often than you would think. One example was when the underlying database for Cyrus (default imap server in Opensuse), the Berkeley DB, changed version and was not compatible any more with the previous one. Admins that preferred a fresh install and restored the data from backup were left with a broken system, Cyrus was dead, whil the in-place updates didn't even notice the change. The update process migrated the databases. Another change like that happened with sasl; Opensuse 10.3 moved the sasl path from /usr/lib/sasl2/ to /etc/sasl2/, again the update process took care of the change and migrated the configuration.
could be resolved by the updater, but what if I created a new installation? Or this situation is absolutely unreal? What can go wrong while an upgrade?
If the Update crashes during the installation you might be left with an indefinable mix of old and new applications and libraries. The same might happen if you installed applications and libraries from source that are not registered within the rpm database. In that case you would be forced to do a fresh install anyway. (^-^)
My other problem is about /etc. Should I copy the old /etc to the new installation, or should I reconfigure everything, or should I overlook every files of /etc and decide what to do one by one?
If you have a complicated installation I would suggest to do an upgrade, it is usually a lot faster to fix the few broken packages/services than to manually configure each service again and check for broken dependencies on other services. It is also a question of how much downtime you can afford.
The /etc question is not straightforward for me in case of a normal update neither. I used Gentoo at the past. In Gentoo the config files have special handling, when your updating procedure try to update a config file, then the new version is copied next to the old version like {&CONFIG_FILE}_001, and you can diff the two versions and do what you want. How SUSE handles these situations?
.rpmorig
Finally a quite newbie question. Under SUSE how I can "export and import" the packages I have between an old and a new installation?
"rpm -qa" will give you a list of all installed packages. In Yast you can also save the installed packages somewhere as custom selection or something like that. Autoyast also offers something similar. -- Sandy List replies only please! Please address PMs to: news-reply2 (@) japantest (.) homelinux (.) com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Sandy Drobic a écrit :
In that case you would be forced to do a fresh install anyway. (^-^)
I'm never sure than the new system will be good or fit my needs, so I always install a new one. I keep the important data in a special place, *not /home*. Your home root place hold config files that migh change from time to time and not accomodate two different systems. I keep a dual boot for some time and only chage when I'm sure all is good. if you upgrade, no way back... jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2008-04-23 at 18:39 +0200, Sandy Drobic wrote: ...
If the Update crashes during the installation you might be left with an indefinable mix of old and new applications and libraries. The same might happen if you installed applications and libraries from source that are not registered within the rpm database.
In that case you would be forced to do a fresh install anyway. (^-^)
Well, you can restore the backup and try again. A backup is always a good thing to have, for many reasons :-) - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFID5DBtTMYHG2NR9URAp3nAJwJJANzKxJqTTKizZ2sJCFH2gXuIgCfYtKE E6NDCLcbc28WyBd6cbpI74Q= =nPRi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Carlos E. R. wrote: | | | The Wednesday 2008-04-23 at 18:39 +0200, Sandy Drobic wrote: | | ... | |> If the Update crashes during the installation you might be left with |> an indefinable mix of old and new applications and libraries. The same |> might happen if you installed applications and libraries from source |> that are not registered within the rpm database. | |> In that case you would be forced to do a fresh install anyway. (^-^) | | Well, you can restore the backup and try again. A backup is always a | good thing to have, for many reasons :-) | | -- Cheers, | Carlos E. R. | Hi, Thanks for the response to everyone :) Of course I'll create a backup. I have a spare partition, so I plan to create a backup there and then do the upgrade, or the new install, I haven't decided yet. It is a developer workstation, so I can tolerate a downtime, but this machine is used 99% of times by myself, so it is quite personalized. The trouble what I want to avoid is a hidden problem, what will be realized months after the upgrade when something demands a task what worked on the old system, and don't work on the new. TIA. Tamas Sarga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIEN5bsuVyj8v2Zy4RApZNAJ9WsF3YziP2AVlkhtuLUReyuDG2xwCfbT8S L5C0SK3hpX0QAu+EWIsLics= =bhfY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Tamas Sarga a écrit :
Of course I'll create a backup. I have a spare partition, so I plan to create a backup there
*no* never keep the backup on the same machine. once I installed on the wrong disk...
trouble what I want to avoid is a hidden problem, what will be realized months after the upgrade when something demands a task what worked on the old system, and don't work on the new.
impossible to avoid... you have always some utility installed/compiled once on a hurry that lacks years after when needed, but then, why upgrade... jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 jdd sur free wrote:
Tamas Sarga a écrit :
Of course I'll create a backup. I have a spare partition, so I plan to create a backup there
*no*
never keep the backup on the same machine.
once I installed on the wrong disk...
This point I absolutely agree with, at least one copy of your backup *has* to be kept well away from the machine you are working on. It is a little too easy to inadvertently torch your backup when upgrading or installing and it is best to be cautious...
jdd
- -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIEY5sasN0sSnLmgIRAtPUAJ489QaFSNS35VsvhEp5vnjkyg1j7wCg9Bm8 f++L0hTMW4JU00uzS7eA4L0= =dzlN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (6)
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Carlos E. R.
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David C. Rankin
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G T Smith
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jdd sur free
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Sandy Drobic
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Tamas Sarga