larry@focsys.UUCP (Larry Williamson) (06/09/88)
I received Microport's 2.3.1 on monday. The improvements over 2.3.0
seem minimal, but some will be nice. I'm glad to see they are
providing the tape driver software as part of the package, too bad
we just bought these drivers 3 weeks ago!
The entire installation notes assume that you are upgrading from
2.2, not from 2.3.0. This is unfortunate as there are some things
that must be considered if 2.3.0 is the current system.
My greatest fear and the reason I've procrastinated installing 2.3.1
so far is that the install is going to overwrite all kinds of system
files that I have modified for our site.
It's not the obvious ones that bother me, /etc/passwd, /etc/groups,
/.profile, etc. I will save these.
It's the ones that I've forgotten about that bother me. Ones that
other packages we've installed have modified without my realising
it. For example, if Rabbit's 3270Plus software installation had
worked, it would have modifed /usr/linkkit/lib2. But since lib2 is
so big, microport's ar command was not able to add Rabbit's drivers
to it. Therefore I had to muck around with this installation by
hand and I (think I) know what files are to be saved.
Never mind that Rabbit should never have tried to modify system
files. They did. What other files may have been changed?
Oh yea, I'll bet all the crontabs are different, and how about
/etc/profile, inittab, gettydefs, TIMEZONE, bsetdate, fstab, issue,
motd. And in /usr/lib/uucp, my goodness, I'd hate to lose anything
there. And it's been months now, but I remember adding some aliases
to /usr/lib/mailx/mailx.rc.
And what is going to happen to my lp setup. Will the install modify
any files in /usr/spool/lp?
I've just scared myself so badly writing this that I may not be able
to bring myself to install the upgrade.
larry
--
Larry Williamson Focus Automation Systems
UUCP: watmath!focsys!larry 608 Weber St. N, Waterloo, Ontario N2V 1K4
+1 519 746 4918pst@comdesign.uucp (Paul Traina) (06/10/88)
Suggestion to Larry & everyone else about microport upgrades: If you're really worried, why not just go to some subdirectory and cpio the stuff out? I'm in the same situation, so what I do is go to my /usr2 partition and type something like cpio -it </dev/rdsk/0s25 to make sure there are no filenames that START with "/" and thent ype cpio -idculma </dev/rdsk/0s25 and every file will go to /usr2/etc, /usr2/usr/lib/uucp, etc... then you can check file modification dates and see what they changed on you. What does change (usually just the kernel) can then be examined, and it will jog a memory or two about what you did. Larry: you said you had a tape drive, there's no excuse for YOU to not make a backup (...I of course have an excuse (grin)) -- work: home: comdesign!pst@pyramid.com pst@ai.ai.mit.edu ...!pyramid!comdesign!pst ...!ucbvax!ucsbcsl!nessus!pst pst@sbitp.bitnet
richardh@killer.UUCP (Richard Hargrove) (06/10/88)
In article <183@focsys.UUCP>, larry@focsys.UUCP (Larry Williamson) writes: > > I received Microport's 2.3.1 on monday. The improvements over 2.3.0 > ... > My greatest fear and the reason I've procrastinated installing 2.3.1 > so far is that the install is going to overwrite all kinds of system > files that I have modified for our site. > > It's not the obvious ones that bother me, /etc/passwd, /etc/groups, > /.profile, etc. I will save these. > > It's the ones that I've forgotten about that bother me. Ones that When I upgraded to 2.3.0 I took advantage of the file /etc/install.date, an empty file created by the installation software (or created by me if the installation software doesn't), to find all the files on the root file system that had been modified since installation. I then decided which of these I wanted to save (unfortunately you still have to think about what you're going to do - unlike on Xenix where all files replaced during an upgrade are saved in a special directory). richard hargrove ...!{ihnp4 | codas | cbosgd}!killer!richardh --------------------------------------------
markz@ssc.UUCP (Mark Zenier) (06/11/88)
In article <183@focsys.UUCP>, larry@focsys.UUCP (Larry Williamson) writes: > > I received Microport's 2.3.1 on monday. The improvements over 2.3.0 > seem minimal, but some will be nice. ... > My greatest fear and the reason I've procrastinated installing 2.3.1 > so far is that the install is going to overwrite all kinds of system > files that I have modified for our site. >... > It's the ones that I've forgotten about that bother me. ... Run "find / -newer (some file created during your last upgrade) ... " and back up the list with the utility of your choice. Better yet make at least two backups of the whole world. (Since I'm going to repartition my hard disk, I'll have to do it anyway.) Did they fix 1) the 720k floppy bug? 2) The software floating point crash the operating system when you just want to print a number bug? aka floating point arrays and the type D trap. 3) the obsolete lint files? Mark Zenier Holder of the Cliff Claven chair at the school of uunet!pilchuck!ssc!markz Unsubstantiated Opinion