Re: tlug: "Upgrading": best method?

["Andrew S. Howell" <andy@example.com>]

>>>>> "Howard" == Howard Abbey <habbey@example.com> writes:

    Howard> wanting to the the easier way out,

Howard,

I have often taken the brute force approach and done a fresh install
to a "spare" disk. I make heavy use of the automounter so that even if
I have to move things to different partitions / disks, through editing
the automount maps, everything looks the same. For a stand-alone
system, the automounter may sound like a bit of overkill, but it make
it very easy to move things around. For example, under /apps, I'll
have various version of netscape, emacs etc. If I run out of disk
space, I may move something from one disk to another, and then update
to map.

You can do the same thing with symbolic links, but then the infomation
about where things are is spread all over hells half acre. With the
automounter, its all in one place. Also, you can't boot two different
systems and maintain the same logical file system structure using
symbolic links. 

Once I'm happy with my setup, my "spare" disk becomes the boot disk,
and I eventually wipe out the old system. In them mean time, when I've
still got the old disk to fall back to, in case there are any serious
problems. Granted this approach requires more hardware, but makes for
much less stressful and cleaner upgrade.

I rely on my system for connectivity to work and email. More than a
few hours of lost connectivity and I start showing withdrawal symptoms
:)

Not sure if this helps or not...

Regards,

	Andy
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