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Date:      Sun, 19 Mar 2000 13:03:36 +0200
From:      Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
To:        J McKitrick <jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 4.0 -> 3.4
Message-ID:  <20000319130336.B66632@hades.hell.gr>
In-Reply-To: <20000318033458.B25228@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>; from jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org on Sat, Mar 18, 2000 at 03:34:58AM %2B0000
References:  <20000318033458.B25228@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>

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On Sat, Mar 18, 2000 at 03:34:58AM +0000, J McKitrick wrote:

> Yes, you read that right, 4.0 to 3.4.  Is there a safe way to go back
> to 3.4 without reformatting?  I would like to keep my home directory
> and installed ports, if possible.

For the installed ports, if you mean the binary executables, etc, I
think there is really no good way of going back to 3.4, when some of
them are compiled on 4.0 and link against the 4.0 libraries.  Unless, of
course, you have kept the distfiles lying around and don't mind another
recompile of the ports ;)

For your home directories, now.  I usually keep my /usr/home on a
separate partition, and take care during the reinstallation process not
to touch the partition at all.  This way, I can save the data files.
The user-IDs might are usually irrelevant on my home installation, since
I only have about 4-5 accounts, and I can chown -R the directories back
to normality in a few seconds.

If, on the other hand, you don't keep a separate /home or /usr/home
partition, you can still tar the thing and send it over the wire on an
Ethernet LAN to some other host.  Then when you're done with the
installation, you can fetch them back in place.

> I was thinking of making install floppies from my 3.2 cdrom,
> installing 3.2 binaries only, and then rebuilding world from the 3.4
> source tree.  Would this work?

You can do a really bare-bones installation (i.e. only the bin package,
and the manpages -- they can be useful at times).  Then you can cvsup to
3.4 or restore your 3.4 sources from some backup and use the normal way
of upgrading (buildworld, installworld, update /etc).

I have cvsup-upgraded machines to 3.4 from 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2-RELEASE
installs lately, and they all worked without any serious post-upgrade
problems.

- Giorgos Keramidas


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