[TriLUG] RH 7.1 to 7.2 results in messed up system :-(

[Ed Hill]

On Wed, 2002-01-16 at 10:29, Michael S Czeiszperger wrote:
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> I recently upgraded from RH 7.1 to 7.2, and its messed up a bunch of stuff 
> like:
> 
> *Apps such as Netscape and VMware have "blocks" where the menus and icons 
> used to be.
> *Konquer hangs every five minutes.
> 
> I've tried reinstalling applications to no avail. RH support says I should 
> try installing 7.2 from scratch, i.e. don't use upgrade, but it would take 
> days to rebuild this machine with all of the software installations. Has 
> anyone else encountered problems with upgrading v.s. installing with RH 7.2? 
> This particular machine has had every RH OS since 5.2 upgraded on it.


Hi Michael,

These problems have been rehashed a number of times on this list.  The
most-recommended solution (AFAIK) is to partition your disk(s) with
/home on its own partition so that its easy to do a fresh install
without loosing any of your data.

I've never done a successful upgrade (and stopped trying back in the
late RH 5.x series) but the method outlined above has worked quite well
for me on a number of machines.  Its also a lot easier if you get in the
habit of keeping track of all the "oddball" RPMs you've installed and
tweaks that you've make to files in /etc, etc.  I've gotten into the
habit of keeping copies of my these thinga and any src tarballs in a
directory in /home just for this purpose.

Of course, you can get some of the benefit of this technique by creating
a backup (CDR) of /etc/ and getting a list of all the rpms that you
currently have installed before re-installing...

Sorry this advice is a bit late for this particular machine, but it is a
good way to manage things in the future.

Ed


-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
Post-Doctoral Researcher   |  Email:       ed at eh3.com, ehill at mines.edu
Division of ESE            |  URL:         http://www.eh3.com
Colorado School of Mines   |  Phone:       303-273-3483
Golden, CO  80401          |  Fax:         303-273-3311
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