[ale] re-installs versus upgrades [was: Re: X wants nvidialibraries]

[Jeff Lightner]

On the flip side the benefit to a reinstall is you end up only with what
is relevant to the new version and aren't left wondering "do I need
THOSE files anymore?".   This question becomes even more important on
multi-user systems where you can never get everyone to agree what is
"safe" to delete.

Years ago for big servers I found that even with good planning and
testing you always find something you missed and still have to address
it afterwards and then you have the old junk that you would have gotten
rid of simply by dint of not having installed it on the reinstall.   I
don't mind "patching" but "upgrading" the OS has never seemed a good
thing to me.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Bob
Toxen
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 3:10 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] re-installs versus upgrades [was: Re: X wants
nvidialibraries]

The problem with re-installs is that all the tweaking I've done w.r.t.
accounts, programs in /usr/local/{bin,sbin}, and zillions of other
things would have to be redone at a huge time cost.

I'm doing THAT for my main server www.verysecurelinux.com and it is an
ongoing pain.

Bob

On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 02:38:38PM -0500, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> On Fri 2008-01-11 08:39:10 -0500, David Tomaschik wrote:
> 
> > I don't know how often Mandriva releases new versions, but I can't
> > imagine reinstalling a system every few months.  I do have separate
> > /home partitions, so those would be preserved, but there's still a
> > lot of system configuration in /etc, installing packages, etc.  Good
> > to know about Mandriva.
> 
> Urg.  No kidding.  Reinstallation sucks, especially during the
> reconfiguration steps.  What did i change to get that MTA to do what i
> needed it to do again?
> 
> debian has me totally spoiled.  I've got machines i've been
> continuously upgrading for years, and it's a really smooth process
> that preserves all the work i put into configuring the systems in the
> first place.  Three cheers for rigorous policy mandating that Upgrades
> Must Work, and well-documented upgrade procedures[0]!
> 
>          --dkg
> 
> [0]
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en
.html



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