5.5 to 6.1 upgrade

[Ian Smith]

Thanks to all who responded for the collective good advice.

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006, Greg Byshenk wrote:

 > On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 11:52:02PM +0200, Stefan Bethke wrote:
 > > Am 21.08.2006 um 18:19 schrieb Ian Smith:
 > 
 > > >I recently (without drama) upgraded a 5.4-RELEASE system to
 > > >FreeBSD 5.5-STABLE #1: Tue Aug  1 11:11:20 EST 2006
 > > >for 'target practice' at least, on the way to 6.1-STABLE
 > 
 > > >I was preparing to portupgrade everything next, when I wondered:
 > 
 > > >a) should I upgrade from RELENG_5 straight to RELENG_6 or should I be
 > > >stopping off at 6.1-RELEASE along the way first?  and
 >  
 > > I'd go straight to 6-stable. Make sure you have a good backup, even  
 > > if you stop over at 6.1.
 >
 > I see no reason not to go directly to 6-stable (if that is what you plan
 > to run); I've done it with multiple machines, and just jump right to the
 > 6-stable version that is active on the machines running 6.x.
 > 
 > Though I've had no problems, I second the recommendation to have a good
 > backup.  Also, if you don't have a known-good 6-stable build, you might
 > want to upgrade to the GENERIC kernel.

Thanks.  On reflection, I think I'll go via 6.1 (more target practice),
use GENERIC if there's any trouble, then to 6-stable as a smaller step. 

 > > >b) do I need to upgrade all existing ports (way out of date) before  
 > > >the source upgrade, or can I be confident of doing that from 6.1
 > > >(-R or -S)?
 > 
 > > >FWIW: a wee Celeron 300, so minimising upgrade build times is  
 > > >desirable.
 >  
 > > Unless you have business critical apps running (downtime must be  
 > > minimal), you can wait until you've completed the upgrade to 6- 
 > > stable, and then run portupgrade -af.  If you'd like to run the  
 > > portupgrade overnight, you might want to define BATCH, and possibly  
 > > set any port building options in /usr/local/etc/pkgtools.conf,  
 > > otherwise, the port builds will be frequently interrupted by make  
 > > config questions.

Good reminders; this box won't be critical till it's all working ..

 > It shouldn't be necessary to rebuild ports before the upgrade.  If 
 > there is something running that is critical, you might want to upgrade
 > it first, just be sure, but it probably isn't necessary.  I upgraded a
 > workstation with 200+ ports installed, and saw no problems (I can't
 > for certain that nothing was broken before I upgraded the ports, but
 > I experienced no problems). 

Good to confirm.  I haven't so many ports installed that I couldn't
start from scratch if it all fell over, so I can play with ports and
packages till I finally learn how to use all the tools effectively.

Cheers, Ian