Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 11:45:43 +1100 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Stanley Hopcroft <Stanley.Hopcroft@IPAustralia.Gov.AU> Cc: Questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How does one upgrade 3.x with 32MB / to 4.x ? Message-ID: <20000928114543.H11123@sydney.worldwide.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0009281109000.1156-100000@stan.aipo.gov.au>; from Stanley.Hopcroft@IPAustralia.Gov.AU on Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 11:14:31AM %2B1100 References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0009281109000.1156-100000@stan.aipo.gov.au>
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On Thursday, 28 September 2000 at 11:14:31 +1100, Stanley Hopcroft wrote: > Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, > > I am writing to ask your recommendations upgrading 3.x hosts with 32 MB > root parititions that are more than 70% full, to 4.x. > > 4.x uses more than 27 MB. > > I have had a lot of trouble trying to use /stand/sysinstall UPGRADE > because the root file system fills up while the bin distribution is > being copied and unpacked. > > Often the machins I upgrade are standalone or have no means of > backup. In any case, I would rather do a fresh install if that were > the only way of getting back data. I think at some point you need to recognize the limitations of the upgrade process. I've been recommending large root partitions with /usr on the / partition for exactly this reason. Nowadays 3 to 4 GB seems a reasonable size, though there are good reasons for only having a single partition per disk. On the other hand, it is possible to run a 4.x system with only 32 MB / file system. In your case, you could consider copying the entire / file system to /usr, possibly with something like: # tar czlf /usr/root.tar.gz / Then perform a normal install, which should not overwrite the data on /usr, and manually recover what you need from the archive back to the root file system. It's painful, but possibly less so than a complete reinstall and repartition. How many systems are involved? Greg -- When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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