I would like to pick up on a question I found in last month's
archive, regarding updating SuSE, posed by Jon Pennington.
How do I go about upgrading the 6.3 base system with the files found
in the 6.3 updates hierarchy of a SuSE mirror? I'm assuming that
simply using 'rpm -Uvh' on a running system with base packages would
be a bad idea, but when I copy all the updates to a prepared
directory, and tell YaST to use that directory as the source of
updates, it claims that my base packages are all up to date, showing
the version numbers for the installed packages, rather than for the
new ones. YaST finds the directory containing the a1/ ap1/, etc.
files--it just doesn't take account of their version numbers.
In his message, Jon gets at the same problem in a different way:
From: Jon Pennington
This is actually one of the few gripes I have about SuSE. The update procedure is half-implemented, and as such is unusable with the tools that they have. YaST *is* capable of installing files from basically anywhere, but not automatically updating from the /updates hierarchy on the ftp sites.
Try this: Insert a CD-ROM (do not mount it) Start YaST Go to Choose/Install Packages; Install Packages At this point, you will be asked to select an installation medium.
Choose Local Directory cd to /var/adm/mount
There's your disc. Unfortunately, you cannot simply mirror the /updates hierarchy from and ftp site, burn it onto a CD-ROM, and use it as-is, because there are no files to tell YaST what is on the disc, and YaST doesn't read symlinks. You'd be stuck using the short file names (package.rpm) which cause problems down the road when doing a full system release update (6.2 -> 6.3, for instance). Frankly, it's frustrated me to the point where I don't bother doing it `The SuSE Way' anymore.
(http://lists.suse.com/archives/suse-linux-e/2000-Feb/0642.html) Thanks in advance. ====================================================================== Chuck Bearden cbearden@rice.edu Electronic Resources Librarian Fondren Library--MS44 713 / 527-8101 x3634 Rice University 713 / 737-5859 (fax) P.O. Box 1892 Houston, TX 77251-1892 ====================================================================== -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/