When I began learning linux a fresh install for each new distro wansnt a big deal, but now that I finally have my firewall configured, smb, mail server, blah blah... its going to SUCK to redo the whole thing and I would rather minimize my downtime if possible.

It there an easy way to upgrade without losing everything? (Yes it might be a silly question but I thought I would ask before I leap.)

Remove your old software sources: Visit easyurpmi.zarb.org or http://www.mandrivauser.de/smarturpmi/ setup your sources.
Then to upgrade though it won't upgrade your kernel.
to see what kernels are available.
to install new kernel.
If you are really still using 10.1 then I don't recommend to upgrade to 2006 at once.

I'm still on 10.1 so should I first upgrade to something else(10.2 maybe)?

Cheers

Either upgrade to 2005 first or do a clean install (recommended).

I was using Mandriva 2006 quite succesfully until this week, well apart from configuring my Lexmark Z615 printer.

I've loaded PCLinuxOS 0.92 onto my Pc and find it a better distribution than Mandriva.

The Control Center will be familiar to Mandriva users and I prefer the PCLinuxOS desktop visual presentation.

Through Synaptic I was able to download Open Office 2.0.2, Adboe Acrobat Reader and Real player.

It uses KDE which is fine by me.

Don't get me wrong, I think Mandriva 2006 and Mandriva One are good distributions, I just prefer PCLInuxOS which is better in my opinion.

Thanks for the reply!
I think I'll try upgrading to 2005 first.

Another question, is it really possible to upgrade the entire os with urpmi as described earlier in the thread?
Just double checking to be sure...

Cheers

Upgrading can take ages whereas a complete reinstall is quicker and cleaner.

True you do have to do reconfiguring, but that's par for the course on any distro.

Mandriva 2006 free is what I would recommend or wait for the new Mandriva 2007 due to be released.

It is possible to upgrade the entire OS.
2007 will be released in\around october.

Sounds nice but... Does it use a windows drive equaly as easy as Mandriva? I've been serching for a Linux OS for ages that will see a windows drive and work with it as aesy as Mandriva..

Most of the config files are in /etc. Maybe you should back up first.

Urpmi is better now but I remember with 10.1 it was scratchy, sometimes stuff was left behind that was not meant to be and others, Dependency hell.

There's an exclude list for stuff you don't want to upgrade, I have kde, xorg and kernel in there.

/etc/urpmi/...

Or use "locate FILENAME" to see where they are, from the konsole.

Glibc is a file that nearly everything else depends upon, so if you do upgrade that one, say goodbye to everything, and you're back to configuring, unless you backup, and/or print the conf files.

PCLinuxOS was originally based on Mandrake 9.2, so yes it is as easy to use.

It reads NTFS partitions, whilst it can read and write to Fat32 partitions in the same way as Mandriva.

Updates using synaptic are more regular than in Mandriva and I haven't had any KDE crash screens so far, which I had when trying Mandriva One.

I also got a KDE crash screens when trying to use Noaton in Mandriva 2006 and in Mandriva 2006.1 as well.

By and large Mandriva is a very good distribution, but not as polished as PCLinuxOS. To me PCLinuxOS 0.92 is what Mandriva should have developed into.

When I had Mandriva on the PC, it was not used as my main operating system, Windows XP was.

Mainly because I hadn't figured out how to get the printer working under Mandriva. I now know how to get my printer and Speedtouch usb Modem working under both Mandriva and PCLInuxOS 0.92

PCLinuxOS is now used as my main operating system, instead of Windows XP, something I never imagined would happen when using Mandriva.

Don't worry if you don't have heaps of distros to pick from, mandrake will do you.

It works fine out of the box on most machines, that's why it's so popular.

http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

Does the --auto-select upgrade kde and x.org as well?

Just curious, this is something I never tried... Thanks

It doesn't upgrade those packages which are in your /etc/urpmi/skip.list file. By default the kernel is in there KDE and Xorg isn't. So yes it does.

Thanks... goes to download PCLinuxOS 0.92