duplicate a drive

[Matthew Seaman]

RW wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:19:23 -0600 (MDT)
> Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
> 
>> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#NEW-HUGE-DISK
>>
> 
> "The best way is to reinstall the OS on the new disk, then move the user
> data over. This is highly recommended if you have been tracking -STABLE
> for more than one release, or have updated a release instead of
> installing a new one."
> 
> 
> "Highly recommended" seems a very strange thing for the FAQ to be
> saying. It's implying that FreeBSD base-system upgrades are a
> bit flaky. It even goes on "Should you decide not to do a fresh
> install", as if to say "you have been warned".
> 
> Unless my experience is abnormal, we seem to be publishing our own FUD.

When does a valid assessment of the difficulty of a certain course of 
action turn into an unjustified attempt to spread Fear, Uncertainty and 
Doubt?   This is not FUD because it is absolutely true.  You will get
better results by making a new install on your new hard drive and 
merging over your data.  Aside from anything else, the recommended 
partitioning has changed significantly over the years, and if you try 
and install 7.x into a disk layout originally designed for 4.x you will be a very unhappy bunny indeed[1].  Not to mention such things as the 
change from UFS1 to UFS2.

Base system upgrades /across major version numbers/ are difficult.  
Unless you have guru-like capabilities, a fanatical level of interest
in the OS internals and a great deal of luck, then it is entirely
likely that you will run into problems you will be unable to solve.
The 6.x to 7.x upgrade is really the first one that I've felt happy to 
do by re-compiling the system in-situ: even so, getting all the 
installed software correctly recompiled and linked against the new 7.x 
shlibs requires a deal of care to make work correctly.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

[1] Of course, if you'ld adopted the 'one big partition' layout which 
I've been known to advocate here and there, this wouldn't be a problem.

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
                                                  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
                                                  Kent, CT11 9PW

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