[lug] Why Not Upgrade? (Was: Forwarding or routing question)

[Chip Atkinson]

Ok, I'll fill in some crucial details as well as opinions. :-)

One should weigh the cost vs. benefits of upgrading.  On the machine that
I have running RH5.0 there is little cost to upgrading.  It's pretty much
a new install and there are no applications that I rely on.  It's a 486
that runs ppp and forwards packets.  If it crashed and started smoking I
wouldn't be out more than a few tears.  

Contrast this to my main server machine.  It's running RH 4.2 on a 2.0.36
kernel.  I use it to serve disk partitions using samba, as a name server,
and most importantly e-mail.  I have a mailing list with 660 subscribers
that gets around 20 or more messages per day (right now), and has peaked
to 60.  Everything is carefully set up and backed up daily.  It has lots
of important applications on it.  If _this_ machine crashed my life would
be severely impacted for several weeks.  

Every upgrade that I've done has been about as bad as a new install.
Usually what happens is that one or more partitions fill up and hose the
entire thing.  This is what happened when I tried up upgrade my server to
5.0.  It took me 4 days or more just to restore fully from backups. 

My opinion is don't upgrade unless you really need to or it's really cheap
to do so.

Chip 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 Chip Atkinson 
 http://www.pupman.com 
 --- If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed --
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

On Tue, 12 Oct 1999, Michael Deck wrote:

> All right, I'll take the bait. I'm running RH5.2 right now with (what seems
> to me) a lot of added-on packages, most of which were built from source.
> It's taken me almost half a year, albeit nowhere near full-time, to get
> this machine configured to do exactly what I want it to do. I haven't kept
> any notes about what I've messed with in the conf files, and the conf files
> seem to be spread all over (e.g. most are in /etc but named keeps its in
> /var/named). I bought the KRUD distro intending to upgrade, but I got the
> willies at the last minute. 
> 
> What keeps me back is the worry that somehow my configuration *just barely*
> works, and it only works because of some quirk in 5.2, and if I upgrade to
> 6.0/KRUD it'll never work again. Or, that in upgrading some of the
> configuration changes will be stomped and I won't know it. I could backup
> /etc and /var but where else is config stored? 
> 
> What would you say to convince me that there's nothing to fear? 
> 
> -Mike
> 
> At 09:47 AM 10/12/99 -0600, you wrote:
> >   Gahhh... I _hate_ that!  I figured out the problem.  
> >You hate it?  I was going to congratulate you.  Also, thank you for
> >describing the problem solution.
> >
> >I am intrigued.  Your machine is running RH 5.0 I believe.  Why don't
> >you upgrade a bit?  Surely it is not cost - see
> >http://www.LinuxMall.com/specials/FreeCD for example.  Is it
> >impossible for you to shut down the machine or something?  Now I see
> >that you recompiled the kernel, so it can't be that.  This is no big
> >deal, of course, if you don't feel like telling; but it is a little
> >puzzling.
> >
> >dajo
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
> >Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug
> 
> 
> Michael Deck
> Cleanroom Software Engineering, Inc.   
> 
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