Hello all-

Ive been running 9.1 since it came out on my system, dual booting with xp. I havent really updated much as im on a dial-up connection. Im waiting for 10.1 to come out where i can buy it and then upgrade. From your experiences, will an upgrade work well (9.1 to 10.1) or would it be best to reinstall? Id like to keep my home dir untouched, can this be done?

my system is nothing fancy: P4 1.4ghz 384mb ram, GeForce 2 ultra, DVD rom, Lite On CDRW, SB Live value, USR Hardware modem.

thanks for the help,
-j

An upgrade SHOULD work with no problem, but even Mandrake recommends doing a complete backup in case anything goes wrong. Also, if you are using Evolution for your Email, the new version with 10.1 has a different directory tree structure, but at least it gives you the option of saving your old folder. Either way, when in doubt, BACK IT ALL UP!

"Upgrades" are rather problematic especially when going from one major version number to another.

What I frequently do is to utilize a LiveCD version of Linux, such as Knoppix, etc.

Then I boot from the CD and mount the Linux partitions.

I then backup the old /etc folder from /mnt/hdaX by tarring it into a single file, in case I ever want to look at my old settings.

I then delete everything except the old /etc/fstab and the home directories.

This gives you completely empty partitions except for the home directories.

Next I boot from the Mandrake install CD's and perform a new install but tell it to use existing partitions.

This causes it to find the remaining /etc/fstab file and performs a clean install while preserving all of my old data.