I'm a novice and my friend who is a professor of computer science at CIT is running out of time to deal with all my linux questions, I hope that I can find more assistance and offer what I can in this forum.

I am running Mandrake 8.2 on one machine and 10 on another. My 8.2 distribution has commercial applications that I wish to retain that are not included in the 10 distribution image on 3 CD's I downloaded.

Can I upgrade 8.2 to 10 from the desktop without rebooting and repartitioning and potentially loosing the commercial apps I use from my 8.2 distribution?

Best regards,


gurfrip

Ps. Can't believe I ever used Windows after getting my first linux machine.

i believe theres an option to upgrade, and I dont believe you will lose your software. Tho Im not sure of it, Im just trying to help you as much as I can, yes there is an upgrade option. No, I'm not entirely sure you can save all your commercial files. (but why wouldn't you be able to? You get to keep the documents and stuff like that, why not an app?)

You will have to reboot at some point - especially if you update the kernel. Make sure you back up all your data and any other important stuff. If you have the commercial apps on cd/floppy/etc or the download files are backed up, there should be no problem with the upgrade.

It's not always safe to upgrade one version to another (esp. one 3 versions higher), often it's better to install from scratch and then replace your backed up files.

Mandrake 10 operational in full. Thank you everyone.

Now for system #2! might try debian.