What is best? Upgrade or clean install?

[nbx909]

Should i do a clean install when Fedora 4 comes out or an upgrade over fedora 3? which would be better? Is there any difference between a fresh or upgrade install?

[bytesniper]

well that entirely depends on the circumstances.

i would always say that a clean install is better as it is quicker to install and has a lot less chances of problems when its done. not only that you dont have a bunchy of old useless packages/data laying around. it clears out all the junk that accumulates over time... hence "clean" install.

there are considerations though. some people dont want to take the time needed to setup and reconfigure everything that they got working. they might have a bunch of data on the / drive that cant be lost.

i *always* do a clean install. the upgrades in the past have notoriously been buggy and prone to fail but i hear that with FC3 (and probably FC4) they are a lot better.

We'll see.

[fsck]

Just to play devil's advocate ;)
While bytesniper's comments are completely valid, I recently upgraded from FC3 to FC4-Test3 without a problem. It's all about the position of the minor planets and the direction you are facing, I'm told...

[mnisay]

same reasons from here, another vote for backup then clean install.

[nbx909]

ok i better get started...

[james_in_denver]

I recommend a "clean" install, but I back up important data and configuration files to a spare partition before I start.

For me, that's EVERTHING in "/etc" "/home" and a pretty good chunk of "/var"

But everything else goes....

[BandC]

For me, that's EVERTHING in "/etc" "/home" and a pretty good chunk of "/var"



Can you expand on this? I understand /home. Do you copy your entire /etc to your new installation or is this just for if something goes wrong? Same thing for var? What do you exactly mean by "a pretty good chunk of /var"? Anything else to back up? I will do a clean install of FC4 pretty soon so I wanna back up by FC3 data. This will be my first new version clean install.

[james_in_denver]

I an entire backup copy of "/etc" for reference purposes, the only files I restore back from "/etc" are the passwd, my "/etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-*" "/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf", the "group", and oh yeah, the xorg.conf and modprobe.conf files...

It's nice to have the backup so you can see what worked on the "earlier" version that you went to the pain and trouble of configuring so you don't have to go through the headaches again.

/home, pretty self explanatory

"/var" ??? that includes the "yum" RPM cache, so I don't have to download all of the "non-Fedora" packages again.

"/var/html" my webserver, i DEFINATELY don't want to lose that.

"/var/db" is where I keep my Oracle and Postgres databases....

"/var/dev" is where I keep my "Development work"....

"/var/misc" is where I keep copies of all "non-RPM" installed packages. (usually downloaded "Tarballs" or java "Jar" files.

And one other file I backup is my custom kernel source tree, "/usr/src/linux", I don't want to lose the kernel configuration file from that!!! Configuring a custom kernel and take a bit of time, so I back that up as well...

Any other directory containing downloads or projects you are currently working on should get backed up....

[bytesniper]

i do pretty much the same thing.. i dont copy it back verbatim to my new /etc direcotory but there are soooo many settings and files in there that have a tweak that by the time you go to back it up there is no possible way to remember everything that was modified. back it up so that way you can access those files in case you need to. a coupel months down the road when im sure i got everything out of it i need i might remove it, but usually burn it to cd and put it in 'the drawer'. /home is spef explainitory but that is its own partition on my systems. it get backed up but just to make sure i still have it if the install goes to the bad place. /var is data (mysql), rpms, cache... so yeah.. i just usually back up all of /var. cant have too much backed up :)

[BandC]

Ok guys thanks.

[Flyboy917]

I recommend a "clean" install, but I back up important data and configuration files to a spare partition before I start.

For me, that's EVERTHING in "/etc" "/home" and a pretty good chunk of "/var"

But everything else goes....

Ok, once you have a cache backup and a clean install, what do you do with it? Overwrite your existing cache with your old one? and ...Run yum with -C option?

[Ranjitnene]

Hey Guys I Am Not Getting How To Post A Message??

[Flyboy917]

Hey Guys I Am Not Getting How To Post A Message??

Posted just fine here
:)

[Ranjitnene]

I wanted to start a new thread . I got it . Thanks anyways.

[imdeemvp]

I always prefer a fresh installation. Do a backup of documents, bookmarks, music and other data/files...and do you are ready to do a fresh installation.