shenkin@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Peter S. Shenkin) (05/30/91)
I'm about to upgrade from 3.2 to 3.3 on a 4d25tg. Since I've never upgraded an OS, I have a few questions that are not addressed in the "Release and Installation Notes." In addition to answering the specific questions that I am about to ask, I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me about any "gotchas" you came across while trying to do the same thing; i.e., if you could also answer the questions I wasn't smart enough to ask, I'd appreciate that, too. Q1. After receiving my machine in the first place, I went through a laborious procedure to increase the swap space. Will I have to do this again after upgrading? Is there anything I can do before I start to make this easier or to render it unnecessary? Q2. The installation notes tell me to make full backups before installing the new system software, but they do not say that I need to restore anything after I do the installation. Do I take this to mean that this should not be necessary? (If I shouldn't have to do a restore, then probably Q3 is irrelevant.) Q3. If it is necessary to restore part of the system, is there any way to make sure that I don't over-write files that 3.3 has created with the old 3.2 versions in the course of doing the restore? There doesn't seem to be a bru option to extract all files except where a file of the same name already exists, and it seems to me that the restore would be very difficult without some simple way of doing this. For example, I have put tcsh into /bin, but there are certainly going to be things in /bin that are updated by the new OS; therefore I can't just restore /bin. Do I have to restore the individual files, such as tcsh, that I have added to directories, such as /bin, that touched by the upgrade? (I hope not, because I'm not sure I can remember what they all are!) Also, how about files that pre-existed, but that I had to change by hand, such as /etc/hosts and sendmail.cf? Do I have to have a list of what all these are? -P. ************************f*u*cn*rd*ths*u*cn*gt*a*gd*jb************************** Peter S. Shenkin, Department of Chemistry, Barnard College, New York, NY 10027 (212)854-1418 shenkin@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu(Internet) shenkin@cunixf(Bitnet) ***"In scenic New York... where the third world is only a subway ride away."***
ajd@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Ashley Dreier) (06/03/91)
shenkin@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Peter S. Shenkin) writes: >I'm about to upgrade from 3.2 to 3.3 on a 4d25tg. Since I've never upgraded >an OS, I have a few questions that are not addressed in the "Release and >Installation Notes." In addition to answering the specific questions that I am >about to ask, I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me about any "gotchas" you >came across while trying to do the same thing; i.e., if you could also >answer the questions I wasn't smart enough to ask, I'd appreciate that, too. >Q2. The installation notes tell me to make full backups before installing the >new system software, but they do not say that I need to restore anything >after I do the installation. Do I take this to mean that this should not >be necessary? (If I shouldn't have to do a restore, then probably Q3 is >irrelevant.) Well, you can either make a complete backup or a partial backup. By a partial backup, I mean only backup files which have been altered since the machine 'came alive'. That way, you are only saving any new files which have been added or altered. Any files which are as old as the system will either stay the same, or be updated by the update. The will save a lot of time, especially if you have a large system. The reason for macking a backup is that an upgrade is potentially dangerous, in that it may cause the system to crash, or worse, destroy the file system (although it's never happened to me, but I've been told about it). In other words, it's just a safety measure in case something happens. >Q3. If it is necessary to restore part of the system, is there any way to >make sure that I don't over-write files that 3.3 has created with the old >3.2 versions in the course of doing the restore? There doesn't seem to be a >bru option to extract all files except where a file of the same name already >exists, and it seems to me that the restore would be very difficult >without some simple way of doing this. For example, I have put tcsh into >/bin, but there are certainly going to be things in /bin that are updated >by the new OS; therefore I can't just restore /bin. Do I have to restore >the individual files, such as tcsh, that I have added to directories, such as >/bin, that touched by the upgrade? (I hope not, because I'm not sure I can >remember what they all are!) Also, how about files that pre-existed, but >that I had to change by hand, such as /etc/hosts and sendmail.cf? Do I >have to have a list of what all these are? Get a listing of the files you had just backed up, and get a listing of files modified during the update. Just compare these to let you know which ones are safe to restore. Ash (ajd@cs.mu.OZ.AU).