Best Practices
 

I have Mandrake 9.1. I often wish to upgrade software on my system but need to know the best way to go about it. For example I want to upgrade Mozilla 1.3 to Mozilla 1.3.1. I don't want to compile over my current installation and I don't want two copies of Mozilla on my hard drive.

What is the best way to upgrade existing software?

Thank you,
Ted.

Haven't used ML in a while but since it's RPM based check this site. www.rpm.org I know RPM has an update feature.

You can find the Mozilla 1.3.1 rpm's here

rpm has an update feature but if Mozilla was installed from source, rpm won't know anything about Mozilla already being installed and won't do an upgrade but an actual install.
You can check if Mozilla is listed in your rpm database by typing
rpm -qa
in a terminal window.

If it's listed you can probably upgrade it.

I like to use URPMI, it's great for plain installs and for upgrading.

I just upgraded Evolution painlessly on the weekend simply by typing as root "urpmi evolution"....

Of course, you need to set up your sources first (search the forums for the instructions, there are plenty).

Thank You
 

Thank you all for the excellent information. However, I suppose I should have been more clear. I generally prefer to compile from source. I seem to have fewer problems that way. In this case, Mozilla probably was installed through RPM so updating is pretty straight-forward. Some programs compiled from source don't have a "make uninstall" feature. Would I just delete these programs and install the newer version?

Thank you,
Ted.