Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Tue, 2006-06-13 at 13:45 +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: in which numerous respondents say that Debian and Gentoo Those are the two that I have experience with upgrading over long time periods. Relevant to this discussion, I had one Debian upgrade continuously from 1998-2003 and a Gentoo system live and upgrading from time to time from 2002-present. Excellent success with both. To me, there is an important consideration: stable or unstable. In Debian's case, if all you ever do is run their stable releases, then you will find their upgrades smooth indeed. They are very focused on this. On the other hand, if you're needing more up to date code, I'd give Gentoo the nod. Because it is building locally as it goes, you are more likely to have everything just fit together. An instantaneous moment of bliss, to be sure, but it does seem to work out well over the long term that each such brief rebuild occasion results in a nice stable ticking-along system. [Frankly, I give credit to the free software universe as a whole, not to any particular distro. The combination of some distros pumping the leading edge and shaking out initial problems, others pulling bugfixes in from the enterprise installations, and things like GNOME and KDE working together (sic) through freedesktop and utoptia and other projects, practices, release cycles, and interaction have coalescing into a whole where everyone quickly benefits from the experiences of the others] Of course, Gentoo doesn't have releases, per se (they cut a bunch of install CDs with lots of precompiled packages to get you bootstrapped a few times a year), but in a continuous upgrade something when I need it and rely on minimum version requirements expressed in the packages to cause deeper upgrades to happen when necessary mode, it's been very reliable. What it means is that my attention is focused on the thing I'm upgrading, and the base system (whatever that might happen to be) is largely left alone to tick along. I wrote an article in Linux Journal last year about it, see: http://www.operationaldynamics.com/reference/articles/GentooUnusual/ if interested. Perfectly smoothly? No. The only way you're going to get that is a blank system fresh install of something like RHEL, SUSE, or maybe someday Ubuntu where stuff has been extensively tested. And even then, it's out of date and frozen in time, so you don't gain a whole lot that way if, for whatever reason, you need a newer version that what your OS is currently providing. Really, the issue boils down to skill set - if you have the skills to watch for, detect, analyze, and resolve issues, then you're going to be fine on the continously upgrading testing/unstable distro versions (Fedora rawhide, Ubuntu whatever, Debian unstable, Gentoo unstable, etc). If you just don't have time for that sort of thing, then, to be perfectly honest, the strategy you have adopted of getting a system installed, configured and then leaving it alone for a long time is a fine one indeed. Nothing like actually getting on with using your computer to be productive as opposed to using all your productivity just to keep a damn computer running. AfC Sydney -- Andrew Frederick Cowie Operational Dynamics Website: http://www.operationaldynamics.com/ Blog: http://research.operationaldynamics.com/blogs/andrew/ GPG key: 0945 9282 449C 0058 1FF5 2852 2D51 130C 57F6 E7BD Sydney: 02 9977 6866 Mobile: 04 1079 6725 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
This one time, at band camp, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? No it's never been perfectly smooth, but it's been doable. (The last time I did an upgrade like that, exim blew up because the configuration format changed completely, but then I ususally use postfix and that's never had an upgrade problem.) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Tue, 2006-06-13 at 13:33 +1000, Luke Kendall wrote: So: does anyone know of a Linux distro that is so easily managed and so well structured, that not only can you easily update all your packages (via apt or yum or whatever), but you can even upgrade the whole distro, 99.99% reliably? (And no, I don't really want to install BSD which can do this, I believe, because AFAIK Linux still has far greater hardware support and much faster development.) Laptop is 18 months old I installed the early release Ubuntu. Upgraded to Breezy, upgraded to Dapper. I had problems with the Dapper upgrade only because I went early and suffered some problems. I expected it but chose to do this, this is my main working system. My Debian system at home I have moved hard-disk from P100, to PII to P4. I have never reinstalled. I have had to fiddle with network cards, and getting X to work on new video and I would probably not do the same thing with my next upgrade too much fiddling. Ta Ken -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On 6/13/06, Luke Kendall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So: does anyone know of a Linux distro that is so easily managed and so well structured, that not only can you easily update all your packages (via apt or yum or whatever), but you can even upgrade the whole distro, 99.99% reliably? (And no, I don't really want to install BSD which can do this, I believe, because AFAIK Linux still has far greater hardware support and much faster development.) Back in the days when I was using Arch Linux i'd easily upgrade from one release to the next without a hitch. I'd usually run developmental versions, too. I'm guessing that they haven't regressed in their stability. :-) Cheers, Lindsay -- http://slug.org.au/ http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). Wise people still routinely advise Install the new system on a spare partition, and switch over when it's properly installed and configured. The problem with this is that if you've tweaked things so that sendmail is running nicely, and you have all the RealPlayer and Flash 7 and innumerable video codecs installed, and your soundcard working well and the DVD burner (and TV card?) etc. etc. all working well - then you have to do all this work afresh on the new system, and that can take days. So: does anyone know of a Linux distro that is so easily managed and so well structured, that not only can you easily update all your packages (via apt or yum or whatever), but you can even upgrade the whole distro, 99.99% reliably? (And no, I don't really want to install BSD which can do this, I believe, because AFAIK Linux still has far greater hardware support and much faster development.) I suppose a halfway decent approach might be to mirror your old working system onto a spare partition, and *then* try running the upgrade on *that*. If it doesn't work, then you're no worse off, having only spent an hour or so installing/upgrading. I must be one of the few people on the planet still running RH 7.2. (I do it because I begrudge spending the days or weeks getting all the extra packages installed that I like.) But it's now too old, and really should be replaced. luke -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On 13 Jun, luke wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). I turned up this discussion about this very topic: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/12/14/152237 in which numerous respondents say that Debian and Gentoo and Mandrake (and Arch Linux) can all have the distro itself upgraded. So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? luke -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
Although it does still have it's flaws, Gentoo is an easily upgraded distro. See http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml to see how gentoo upgrading works... On 6/13/06, Luke Kendall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). Wise people still routinely advise Install the new system on a spare partition, and switch over when it's properly installed and configured. The problem with this is that if you've tweaked things so that sendmail is running nicely, and you have all the RealPlayer and Flash 7 and innumerable video codecs installed, and your soundcard working well and the DVD burner (and TV card?) etc. etc. all working well - then you have to do all this work afresh on the new system, and that can take days. So: does anyone know of a Linux distro that is so easily managed and so well structured, that not only can you easily update all your packages (via apt or yum or whatever), but you can even upgrade the whole distro, 99.99% reliably? (And no, I don't really want to install BSD which can do this, I believe, because AFAIK Linux still has far greater hardware support and much faster development.) I suppose a halfway decent approach might be to mirror your old working system onto a spare partition, and *then* try running the upgrade on *that*. If it doesn't work, then you're no worse off, having only spent an hour or so installing/upgrading. I must be one of the few people on the planet still running RH 7.2. (I do it because I begrudge spending the days or weeks getting all the extra packages installed that I like.) But it's now too old, and really should be replaced. luke -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Menno Schaaf aka ginji irc.austnet.org #gentoo #linux-help -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? With Debian, it depends on the packages you have installed. Often times there will be old packages that would prevent a smmooth dist-upgrade, but they can be resolved quite easily (remove the old offending package first). Normally apt or dpkg would tell you how to resolve such problem if it exists. At the end of an upgrade, yes, Debian/Ubuntu is very usable, unlike some other distros. -- -BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK- Version: 3.12 GCS d+ s: a- C++ UL P- L+++ E--- W++ N* o-- K-- w--- O-- M V- PS PE Y PGP++ t 5 X++ R tv b++ DI+ D++ G e++ h! r y? --END GEEK CODE BLOCK-- signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On 6/13/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? It's not always smotth, but its certainly possible. Ubuntu can also do the samething. ie. Friend had Ubuintu Breezy installed and recently did a apt-get dist-upgrade to Ubuntu Dapper. Of course he had some odd problems, but managed to work through them and get the machine upgraded without the need for a reinstall. So it's certainly possible. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
My Debian boxes have always been smooth upgrading, never a problem, and my gentoo ones as well. Gentoo won't change the configuration straight away (you update and then run etc-update to go through the config changes) As long as you don't hit -5 as the option for etc update you'll be in for a smooth update. I think the point is that with debian and gentoo you get a rolling update (updates to apps as they come, not all at once), so any problems you might have with a package are dealt with then, and you don't get any compounding problems because of it (generally, not always) On 6/13/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 13 Jun, luke wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). I turned up this discussion about this very topic: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/12/14/152237 in which numerous respondents say that Debian and Gentoo and Mandrake (and Arch Linux) can all have the distro itself upgraded. So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? luke -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Menno Schaaf aka ginji irc.austnet.org #gentoo #linux-help -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
Michael Fox wrote: On 6/13/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? It's not always smotth, but its certainly possible. Ubuntu can also do the samething. ie. Friend had Ubuintu Breezy installed and recently did a apt-get dist-upgrade to Ubuntu Dapper. Of course he had some odd problems, but managed to work through them and get the machine upgraded without the need for a reinstall. So it's certainly possible. Certainly worked OK here - dist-upgrade from Breezy to Dapper - all OK apart from a bug introduced by Dapper where the default sound card setting is not saved properly between reboots. Fil -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
Luke Kendall wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). My current laptop was installed from an Ubuntu Warty CD because its all I had on hand at the time. I then immediately dist-upgraded it to the Breezy release (5.10) without even having a CD, just distupgrade over the net. Then, about 3-4 weeks ago I dist-upgraded the machine to Dapper, again no cdrom, just the net. The Warty to Breezy upgrade was completely painless. Some stuff that didn't work in Warty started working in Breezy. The Breezy to Dapper upgrade was marginally more painful but an order of magnitude less painful than installing from scratch and then reapplying tweaks. Debian is similarly easily upgradable, but all my machines run testing and therefore never need anything like a full upgrade. Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain. -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
Luke Kendall wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). Wise people still routinely advise Install the new system on a spare partition, and switch over when it's properly installed and configured. I've managed to upgrade my server at home from RH9 to FC1 then all the way up to FC4. Slightly painful but it probably would have been better if I used apt instead of yum with the earlier upgrades (there was some reason I used yum instead at the time, just can't remember exactly what that reason was). I should point out that the RH9 to FCx box is a fairly simple server (bind, sendmail, apache, samba, squid). I had openldap running on it as well, but that broke for me back at FC3 and I haven't bothered fixing it (wasn't critical). And like lots of other people here, I've gone from ubuntu warty to breezy to dapper (the same hard drive has been upgraded in 3 different machines as well in one case). Debian-based distros are definitely alot *less* painful than trying to get FC/RH based distros upgraded between releases though. -- dave. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Tue, 2006-06-13 at 13:55 +1000, Billy Kwong wrote: So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? With Debian, it depends on the packages you have installed. Often times there will be old packages that would prevent a smmooth dist-upgrade, but they can be resolved quite easily (remove the old offending package first). Normally apt or dpkg would tell you how to resolve such problem if it exists. At the end of an upgrade, yes, Debian/Ubuntu is very usable, unlike some other distros. hmmm well for me the upgrade from breezy to dapper turned my laptop into a paper weight (dapper has issues with ati video cards) I blew everything away and went back to breezy. So warned I tried the dapper desktop cd before upgrading my desktop. Result, hard drives, what hard drives? Apparently dapper amd64 doesn't like adaptec scsi cards. So for me the upgrade breezy to dapper was a complete impossibility. For either laptop or desktop. Regards, Ashley -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
* On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 01:33:47PM +1000, Luke Kendall wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). Uhhh, how about Debian (and variants like Ubuntu)? Upgrading is very safe, and if you have doubts about a particular package, you can always pin it and do the upgrade at a later stage. Any problems I've had have usually been caused by software that was installed manually rather than thru a package. I must be one of the few people on the planet still running RH 7.2. (I do it because I begrudge spending the days or weeks getting all the extra packages installed that I like.) But it's now too old, and really should be replaced. I think all Linuxes (even Debian) would have issues when doing such a large version increase; in Debian would be solveable but take a fair bit of work. If you've got different partions (eg /home, /var) it can be easier to reinstall and keep your existing data on these separate partions. -- Sonia Hamilton. GPG key A8B77238. . Complaining that Linux doesn't work well with Windows is like ... oh, say, evaluating an early automobile and complaining that there's no place to hitch up a horse. (Daniel Dvorkin) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
