On Sun, 2002-07-28 at 08:29, Tom Brinkman wrote:
>
> In early June I saved a copy of 8.2's /home/tom to a storage
> partition and did a fresh install of 8.3/9.0 (the 6/6/02 'alpha'
> release). Immediately after the install, I copied the 8.2 /home backup
> into 9.0, which instantly broke the whole system. I sort'a knew it
> would ;) KDE wouldn't even start. Re-installed 9.0, and the first thing
> I did was copy in from backup, my /Mail dir. Then Kmail had all my
> saved, old to current emails and folders. In trying to copy in 8.2
> kmailrc files (I saved the existing 9.0 rc files first), kmail broke.
> So I reinstated the 9.0 kmail rc files, and reconfigured the newer
> kmail version.
>
> It took a few minutes, not "many hours". I had a similar experience
> with KNode, several others. All in all, copying in what I could from my
> /home backup, and reconfiguring everything I normally use, including
> installing a few apps that don't come with Mandrake took little more
> than an hour, maybe two at most. Granted I've had to do all this many
> times in the past with Mandrake version upgrades, so I pretty well know
> in advance, what will/won't work, what can be saved/what shouldn't be.
> A lot of this knowledge comes from lurking on the cooker mailing list.
>
> Since June, I've kept 9.0 current using 'urpmi --auto-select' on
> cooker mirrors. Occaisionally, some package upgrades will overrite a
> old config file. Sometimes configuration is moved, and the old config
> is obsolete (eg, ~/X11/fs/config for Gnome2 apps). The developers try'n
> hold this to a bare minimum, but sometimes it's neccessary. Which is
> just part of why a saved 8.2 /home won't work with 9.0. Other major
> reasons are the vast changes in libraries and gcc. So for example,
> stuff like flash, (Sun) java, and other 3rd party closed source stuff
> is mostly worthless. At least until they get around to upgrading their
> apps to the new gcc/libs. The vendors will have to, Mandrake can't do
> it without their source, or for legal reasons. Many cookers have
> reported some success with getting nvidia's src.rpms and other 3rd
> party stuff to rebuild on 9.0 using IGNORE_GCC_MISMATCH=1 on src.rpms.
> I haven't bothered.
>
> In the past week, cooker has moved from gcc 3.1.1 to 3.2, requiring
> that most all packages in 9.0 be completely rebuilt. Practically the
> whole distro. I can't upgrade with just a dialup, so I'm stuck with
> roughly 9.0b1 till I get 9.0beta2 CD's. When they come out, I already
> know a complete wipe and fresh install will be wise, if not just plain
> neccessary. So, much less 8.2 isn't compatible with 9.0, 9.0b1 isn't
> even compatible with 9.0b2. While an upgrade might be possible, it
> _would_ probly take "many hours" and lot'sa fixin. Easier an simpler
> just to wipe, re-install, and do a little reconfiguring, save from
> backup whatever's possible, re-do what isn't.
>
> I never could figure out any worthwhile purpose for desktop icons
> other than to clutter things up, any OS. The menu works just find for
> starting stuff, sometimes better. First thing always I do after a
> fresh install is to delete all /Desktop icons except for Trash, which I
> move so that the icon no longer appears. Takes a minute ;> YMMV
> --
> Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Well, I disagree about having to reinstall. I've kept cooker current
through urpmi (and the occasional 'rpm -Uvh --no-deps'--only 3 packages
needed it when the change to perl5.8 came) since 8.1. You have to keep
an eye on rpm messages like .rpmnew/.rpmsave files, but it's not that
hard. It's definitely not for someone who doesn't like using
terminals. I found it's the GUI stuff that breaks most often.
--
/curtis ><>
Mandrake Linux 9.0 (cooker)
Kernel Version 2.4.18-21mdk
Uptime 21 hours 34 minutes
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