From 4.7 to 4.8

[taxman]

On Sunday 06 April 2003 09:41 pm, taxman wrote:
> > On Sunday 06 April 2003 07:23 pm, Konrad Scorciapino wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > From freebsd.org:
> > > > If you're upgrading from a previous release of FreeBSD, you generally
> > > > will have three options:
> > > > - Using the binary upgrade option of sysinstall(8).
> >
> > as far as I understand it, it's the worst of the three options.  Back up
> > and reinstall is the most reliable.  I've done many many source upgrades,
> > and never had serious problems that trying again didn't fix.  Just my two
> > cents. If you care to do the binary upgrade read on.
> >
> > > How can I do it?
> >
> > You need to run the new sysinstall.  You would get this by either booting
> > from a 4.8 Release CD, or the 4.8 Release boot floppies.  If you do the
> > floppies, then you can choose how you get the rest, by ftp or whatever.
> > Make sure to read the whole warning, especially the part about good
> > backups.
> >
> > Tim

On Sunday 06 April 2003 09:50 pm, Konrad Scorciapino wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is there a safe way to upgrade the system?
>
> In this computer, I have over 15Gb in files, so doing a backup isn't
> viable.

It has to be.  If you can't backup you can't upgrade.  Well you can, you just 
have to be willing to lose all your files.  This is not a FreeBSD or even an 
OS specific problem.  Disks fail, if you can't backup then you're saying your 
data is not important enough to protect.  If it is important enough that you 
can't go without it, you need to figure out how to back it up.  In that 
light, maybe buying a second disk to move the data to would be worth it.
If you can afford to lose the data, then use whatever method, as it doesn't 
matter.

That said, your data is rarely (though not never) lost in an upgrade.  But do 
make sure to backup all of /etc/  and anything you may have modified on your 
system.

Like I said, I prefer the source upgrade method.  It requires a fair bit of 
learning to pull off, but everything you need to know can be found in the 
handbook.  www.freebsd.org/handbook
The payoff for the learning effort is that you can upgrade when security 
issues come up.  Doing this by source is the only real way I can think of.

Also, please keep all mailing list mail on the list, that is how people learn 
and how this works.  If I can't answer your question (which is often) others 
may be able to.

Good luck,

	Tim