From owner-freebsd-stable Sat Mar 18 9: 6:29 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mail.ddg.com (eunuch.ddg.com [216.30.58.66]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A71937B60B for ; Sat, 18 Mar 2000 09:06:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rkw@dataplex.net) Received: from nomad.dataplex.net (24.28.73.209) by mail.ddg.com with SMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 2.1); Sat, 18 Mar 2000 11:06:23 -0600 From: Richard Wackerbarth To: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: HEADS UP: 3.x -> 4.0-STABLE upgrade instructions Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 11:05:33 -0600 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.28] Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <00031811062100.03963@nomad.dataplex.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 17 Mar 2000, Nik Clayton wrote: > I've got no idea how easy it would be to do, but we could use a variable > that we could set in the bootloader to specify where the /etc and /dev > directories actually are. It'd be nice to upgrade by creating a > /etc.current and a /dev.current. The kernel could then be told to use > these directories instead. > > If, for some reason, your upgrade doesn't work, you can back out to a > previous kernel, even if the new /etc and /dev aren't compatible with the > old kernel. . . In days of old, we used to have two "root" partitions on every system. One was always a "proven" system and the other experimental. When the experimental system crashes on boot-up, you just reboot on the older root partition. And keep a boot floppy around in case you trash the boot blocks. Two "root"s also solves the compatability problem for "modules", "devices", and configuration files like /etc/fstab. This scheme has served me well for decades. I highly recommend it. -- Richard Wackerbarth rkw@Dataplex.NET To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message