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Old 10-01-2002, 11:10 PM   #1
doublefailure
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help on preserving applications when upgrading


i have mand8.2 and want to upgrade 9.0 (or maybe when 9.1 arrives)
here's my partition layout..

[eugene@beautifulmind eugene]$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda5 965M 541M 375M 60% /
/dev/hda7 15M 4.4M 10M 31% /boot
none 250M 0 250M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda10 3.1G 2.0G 965M 68% /home
/dev/hda1 4.4G 4.1G 315M 93% /mnt/windows
/dev/hda8 2.2G 1.9G 303M 87% /usr
/dev/hda9 7.4G 5.7G 1.4G 80% /usr/local
[eugene@beautifulmind eugene]$

i know i can save data(my codings and etc) at /home

i've postgres/oracle and stuff in /usr/local
and some more apps i want to keep
what bothers me is that i am not sure if i can keep these programs since i believe some programs have config settings under /etc

so i thought, i would seperate /etc too and keep it, but i guess many new programs in 9.0 wouldn't work with /etc

any help will be greatly appreciated..

what's the best way to save current installations & upgrade stuff ..
thanks

maybe i'm gonna just back up /etc
.. leave /home /usr/local as they were
..clean install (expert mode?) ..and see what happens with /etc
and restore needed files from backup to new /etc
 
Old 10-01-2002, 11:18 PM   #2
neo77777
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I'd back up installation files, databases, and personal files. Reasoning:
Installation files - it is good to reinstall the application on a freshly installed OS
Database files - I think you got it, acual DB's, tables,and data in them are valuable
Personal files - well you know if you have that how-to that you bookmarked and you don't want to remember the URL, what you do when you reinstall a browser, yep you are backing up bookmarks file, so you can recreate your bookmarks easily.
Hope this helps.
One more suggestion - give /usr/local more space on new install.
P.S. Forgot - I'd bak up critical configuration fiiles as well - httpd.conf, etc. plus of course any html, php, and other files.

Last edited by neo77777; 10-01-2002 at 11:42 PM.
 
Old 10-02-2002, 12:02 AM   #3
doublefailure
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i guess you refered
personal files --- /home
database files --- db dump files
installation files --- ??

like httpd.conf file, some files are under /etc
but i am not aware of all of those files for apps that i installed..

as i said, i think i'm gonna back up /etc
and restore files from the backup as i need after upgrading..

i guess that's the only way i can do 'clean install' & preserve applications(along with settings)
....thx
 
Old 10-02-2002, 12:20 AM   #4
neo77777
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Intallation files - I refered to files like oracle OpenOffice source or RPM or whatever format it comes in, OO is just an example. Oh, here is a good example, recently I had to reinstall OS, and I have a DSL account, my other computer is connected through a router (that's a little bit of overkill for 2-computrer network, but it was a gift that I use, later I'd donate it and get a switch or get more PC's in the house, wishes, wishes) and DSL connection is shared. My main computer that went kaboom on me was a gateway to the net and it had roaring penguin client installed to connect to the net via PPPoE, so when it crashed, I had no internet access at all, and I had the rp-pppoe software on a floppy, which got crippled on me. So, in order for me to get online and bring everything the way it used to be I had to get the rp-pppoe back again, which ment I had to get online, and I don't have a dial-up modem, lucky me it is a small program and a favor from a friend I was back live again in no time. NOw imagie if I needed something bigger than 190K. So, you got the idea?
 
Old 10-02-2002, 12:26 AM   #5
neo77777
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and as for your question on /etc and settings, it might work, and it might not, when you install a newer OS the packages are newer, who guarantees that configs syntax won't change between the versions? And the list won't end here. So, in my humble opinion, what you should do, is back up the most critical and hard to configure for yourself apps and their respectivce conf files.
 
Old 10-02-2002, 12:42 AM   #6
doublefailure
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thx neo..for clarifying what i should do with config files.

actually this was one of questions that i doubted for long time.
wouldn't it be easier if all applications use only it's own installation directory even for config files(such as httpd.conf in /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf
rather than /etc/httpd.conf)?

...
yeah i try to keep the files i installed (mainly to know what version i installed.. =( and for recompiling when needed.)

i keep dual booting for the problems that you talked about..
when something goes wrong(like booting or networking problem) i go to windows and find out solutions..

thanks again
 
  


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