Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 13:48:07 +0200 From: Thor Legvold <tlegvold@c2i.net> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Upgrade questions Message-ID: <00042314265900.00563@valhall.c2i.net>
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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 partition= s 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 liv= able. So far the system seems very responsive and useable, although certain ele= ments of the KDE system just don't work for me. I'd now like to consider upgrading and have several questions about it. M= y upgrading relates to four areas: 1. 3.3-RELEASE (actually I think I already upp'ed it to -STABLE) to 4.0-R= ELEASE (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 be= fore and it seemed to work well, except for the partition glitch mentioned abo= ve. I didn't change (knowingly) partition information (it was after all an upgr= ade, not a new install) so I imagine the problem was there from before. Are t= here other things I should know about 4.0 before I upgrade? 4.0 is an improvem= ent over 3.3, right...? Or should I instead go with 3.4? There are so many ve= rsions 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, u= sually 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? 2. XFree86 3.3.4 - XFree86 3.3.6 or possibly the new 4.0 that just came o= ut (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 on= e use the ports/packages collection directly, go via /stand/sysinstall (which basically seems to do the same thing, but is automated) or compile from s= ource? 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 o= nes, 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 la= ter impossible if they have common files....). When trying to remove older ve= rsions I get messages about other packages requiring them, and the removal is ab= orted. I could force removal, but wouldn't that mess up the dependency informati= on? Even after I reinstall a newer version? 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 t= o 0.7.6, etc. Should one uninstall the exisiting package/port before instal= ling 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 comp= onents only end up less and less in sync with each other that way. Thanks in advance (please cc: a reply to my email if you reply to the lis= t) Thor To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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