Hello
I upgraded from SuSE 8.0 to 8.2 using the automatic upgrade function in the YaST2 setup. It went as expected - I had loads of problems afterwards so I thought I'd move my /home to hdb1 and then do a clean install. hdb had an old, partially destroyed version of Mandrake on it so I repartitioned (to hdb1 and 2)it using the partition tool in YaST2.Suddenly, I lost bash and x would not restart. The error at startx was something like "error no bash: tee) - so......I swapped the HDD around and intalled SuSE 8.2 on the new hda1. That's all gone well - but I want to know whether I can copy the /home file from the new hdb1 (my problem copy of SuSE 8.2) directly into my fresh install, replacing the default /home. I will then attempt to format and repartition hdb so that I can eventually move my /home to it.I don't want to have to go through this again!!

When I format and partition hdb, what exactly is the procedure (I followed info from LQ the first time round but clearly I made a mistake soemwhere ) - I'd like two partitions of approx 10GB each - one for /home and one for data files (mpeg, jpeg etc).

I hope you can help!!!!
Thanks

I've just reread Aussie's excellent article http://www.p-two.net/modules.php?op=...icle&sid=12and one or two other posts and will retry to format and partitiion my hdb.

I've been trying to get info on how to upgrade from 8.1 to 8.2 (safely) but have not gotten around to doing it, like you are doing now. I wish I could contribute some helpful suggestions, but don't have any yet....:-(

Hopefully, you could post your results later to get a grip on how you did it, so we can follow your steps....

Good Luck!

Hello vous
Initially, I booted from the SuSE 8.2 CD-ROM and followed the installation process until I came to the point where I was offered the opportunity to upgrade my current (8.0) SuSE. I did this and then started to deal with the problems - nothing was working right!

In the end, a clean install was required. I'm sure millions of other users have managed to upgrade their SuSE systems but I failed and I'll NEVER try an upgrade again. In future, my /home file will be on a different partition and I'll be able to upgrade via a fresh install at will. Now I'm just trying to get my box back to how it was so that my partner won't notice the difference!!!
Good luck!

Upgrading SuSE linux is a bit tricky specially with a leap frog jump in the upgrade versioning.

My experience upgrading from 7.0 to 7.1 to 7.2 was mostly smooth. But on one rig upgrade from 7.0 to 7.2 was not -> required new install.
From 7.3 to 8.0 was not smooth either -> reqired new install. From 8.0 to 8.1 was trivial. From 8.1 to 8.2 was easy but follow these (some) tips for smooth upgrade:

Always backup your important data (mostly on your /home/users and some on /root directories). Backup your important configuration files (most are in the /etc, /home/users, /boot).
These are some specific files or directories I always backup: /boot/grub/menu.lst, /home/users/documents (and some others on this directory including .kde), /etc/X11/XF86Config (and many other config files in this dir), /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype (and some other shared fonts, shared icons, wallpapers, sounds, etc. )

Make a separate /home directory partition (a must) and a separate shared directory for backup (very handy). Make these partitions in a different sizes according to the available space and need. With some different sizes I can tell whether a partition is my / (root) or /home or /backup etc.

A new installation is preferable than upgrade for smoother upgrade if the different versions are huge (provided that above procedure is followed). Some other procedure are provided in the manual ;-)


Good luck and have fun :-)