Updating Software and Distro

[John R. Ghidiu]

I would agree with John Neff - the kernel is nothing to mess with. Now,
you can just use your boot disk and repair the problem, but how many
people really keep (or even make) a boot disk (and yes, you can make one
on another computer and tweak it to work, yada yada yada). In general, I
try to not have software mess with the vital organs of my OS.

As far as upgrading (within the same distro), I would think that
Mandrake is pretty easy to do, since it is based on Red Hat and Red Hat
tends to be good at upgrades. When I do backups, I usually just backup
/home (which is its own partition, so when I do a fresh install, it just
has to be listed as a mount point), with the caveat that anything that
should be backed up goes there.

In terms of Mandrake Online, I do not think it is necessarily a bad
thing. Red Hat has a similar program (Red Hat Network), which I use.
It's pretty neat - I tell it my email address and register all of my Red
Hat systems with it. Whenever there is a vital update (security hole,
etc.), I get an email telling me that at least one of my systems has
been effected and should be updated. Then I fire up the RHN and
everything is A-OK until the next bug! Of course, since I have not used
Mandrake Online, I cannot comment on it, but the Red Hat one is quite
nice.

Hope that helps,

John

On Tue, 2002-07-09 at 18:47, S. Lawton wrote:
> I grabbed a bunch of rpms, and got dependency errors knocked down to 
> a list of shared object files - so much for Evolution. Mandrake 8.2 
> is the obvious answer. 
> 
> I accidently opened the "Mandrake Online" icon, and they want me to 
> register for updates, but it sounded perilously close to "This just 
> isn't all good..." [spooky timing], so I just hit QUIT. 
> Also, in Control Center's Software Manager, I never bothered with 
> Mandrake Update, because this machine didn't have access to WWW until 
> a few weeks ago. 
> Should I go ahead and set these utilities up ? 
> Any caveats ? 
> I remember John Neff said something about not letting Mandrake Update 
> fool with your kernel. 
> 
> The system is a stand alone [not networked] dual boot desk top 
> machine on Dial Up [ the only time it's connected is when I'm 
> surfing, or sending + receiving email], with me as the sole user 
> [actually me as 2 users, logged on singly, one in KDE and one in 
> GNOME, because I'm figuring out how permissions work]. The linux is 
> Mandrake 8.1 as it came from the install CDs. 
> 
> Regarding upgrading the distro to a newer version, I actually found a 
> HOW-TO, dated ~1999, that said basically to backup /home, reformat 
> everything else, then do the install ! That sounded like "washing 
> Windows". Hopefully, by now, you can install a newer distribution 
> OVER another [like a Mandrake over a Mandrake, a Red Hat over a Red 
> Hat, nothing cross-platform], because I've put a lot of custom icons, 
> wallpapers, and such in various places down in /usr/share. 
> 
> What did those of you who went to v8.2 backup before you did the 
> upgrade ? Was /home even touched ?
> -- 
> S. Lawton
> 
> Kmail 1.3.1