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 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? 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? 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? 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. 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
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