Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 13:51:35 -0700 From: Kent Stewart <kstewart@3-cities.com> To: tlegvold@c2i.net Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Upgrade questions Message-ID: <39036257.C004BD9B@3-cities.com> References: <00042314265900.00563@valhall.c2i.net>
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Thor Legvold wrote: > > I've reinstalled after fixing the nasty partition overlap that somehow > occured during my previous install - Windows and FreeBSD didn't like too much > sharing several hundred megabites of file systems where the two partitions > actually overlapped each other - oops! > > All seems stable, I've restored the files I managed to save and have only done > some simple configuration of the existing install to make things more livable. > So far the system seems very responsive and useable, although certain elements > of the KDE system just don't work for me. > > I'd now like to consider upgrading and have several questions about it. My > upgrading relates to four areas: > > 1. 3.3-RELEASE (actually I think I already upp'ed it to -STABLE) to 4.0-RELEASE > (or possibly -STABLE if it exists). I understand that all I need to do is > download the boot floppies, reboot and use /stand/sysinstall to choose > "upgrade" and everything goes automatically via ftp. I've done it once before > and it seemed to work well, except for the partition glitch mentioned above. I > didn't change (knowingly) partition information (it was after all an upgrade, > not a new install) so I imagine the problem was there from before. Are there > other things I should know about 4.0 before I upgrade? 4.0 is an improvement > over 3.3, right...? Or should I instead go with 3.4? There are so many versions > available it's difficult to know what is the mainstream basically stable > version eveyone uses - there is 3.3, 3.4, 4.0, 2.8, etc, all with "stable" (or > at least "release") status. From my experience with other Unix systems, usually > the latest (non-developmental) version is the most stable (bug fixes, > optimizing of code, etc), i.e. the latest "release". Does that apply also to > FreeBSD? I'm curious what parts of KDE don't work. I pretty much did a full install of KDE and haven't found any but I'm not using them all. The source upgrade via cvsup to RELENG_4 can be troublesome. Once you have finished cvsup'ing, you have an /usr/src/UPDATING document that you must follow to the letter. I tried and it died in the middle of the "make installkernel KERNEL=RUBY" with an error=64. At that point, I had a mix of code and the easiest way out was a clean install. I've never had an upgrade from source fail but this one did. My system needed restructuring because I still had my novice install with a / partition that included /usr, /tmp, and /var. The rebuild left / as a 100MB partition and the other three had their own partitions. The sizes were what I considered as appropriate for my needs. The end result was a number of improvements. I was happy that I upgraded but I spent of couple of unhappy days until I got back to an operating setup. My dial out worked the night that I started the clean install. I had copied /etc onto a backup file system that wasn't affected by the restructure. I had complications from an overclocked Celeron 300a that was dying in the middle of all of this. Once I resinstalled the slower Celeron 433a, everything worked fine and the clean install involved the least effort on my part since I started using FreeBSD-2.2.8. > > 2. XFree86 3.3.4 - XFree86 3.3.6 or possibly the new 4.0 that just came out (if > I recall correctly). Should I remove the 3.3.4 package and reinstall the newer > version, or can I install over the old to preserve my settings? Should one use > the ports/packages collection directly, go via /stand/sysinstall (which > basically seems to do the same thing, but is automated) or compile from source? I haven't tried XFree86-4.0 yet. > > 3. KDE 1.1.1 - KDE 1.1.2 - much of the same questions apply here, and it > requires several packages that aren't in 3.3 (or 4.0 I beleive, Mesa, QT, some > other stuff). When I try to install the newer packages they conflict with other > installed stuff. Should I remove older versions before installing newer ones, > or can one "upgrade" by simply installing over the old install (I notice that > pkg_info then reports several versions, and it might make removing one later > impossible if they have common files....). When trying to remove older versions > I get messages about other packages requiring them, and the removal is aborted. > I could force removal, but wouldn't that mess up the dependency information? > Even after I reinstall a newer version? Normally, I follow the instructions from "pkg_version -c". It frequently shows a "-f" option to force the removal. Just don't do anything to develop the uzi_foot_syndrome, i.e., modify your x-libs while you are running x. I think KDE is really frequent contributor to the ufs awards - the computer equivalent of the Darwin Award :). > > 4. General upgrading of non-system components (programs, libraries, etc) > For example, Netscape Communicator 4.61 to 4.72 or newer, AbiWord 0.5.5 to > 0.7.6, etc. Should one uninstall the exisiting package/port before installing > the newer one, or simply install over the old one? Some programs (either ports, > packages or free standing dists) require newer (or different) versions of > certain libraries, toolkits, etc. Should one go ahead and upgrade this as well, > or install it in parallell to the older version? It seems the system components > only end up less and less in sync with each other that way. I installed Netscape for Linux 4.72 at my original install. It worked on the first connection to the Internet. What more can I say. Murphy usually sits on my shoulder and if there are 2+ bugs, I will see one of them. Don't uninstall until you have a good build of a port. Then, you do the pkg_delete and "make install". A package is already build and you need to do the pkg_delete first and then pkg_add. Good luck, Kent > > Thanks in advance (please cc: a reply to my email if you reply to the list) > Thor > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message -- Kent Stewart Richland, WA mailto:kstewart@3-cities.com http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/index.html FreeBSD News http://daily.daemonnews.org/ SETI(Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @ HOME http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Hunting Archibald Stewart, b 1802 in Ballymena, Antrim Co., NIR http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/genealogy/archibald_stewart.html To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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