Upgrading the Installed package

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Jason C. Wells wrote:

> navneet Upadhyay wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>       I have two binary packages of an application of version 1.1 and 
>> 1.2.
>> *The 1.1 is already installed, how can i upgrade it to 1.2* ?
>>
>> Do i have to uninstall 1.1 and then install 1.2 ?   I would prefer a 
>> way by
>> which i can upgrade an wxisting package without uninstalling.
>
>
> Uninstall reinstall takes all of five seconds.  It's quite easy.  Any 
> of the ports management software has to do some variety of this 
> anyway. The only difference is they do it with one command.

Actually, there is one other key difference.  portupgrade[1] will make a 
*backup* of the package it is about to uninstall, and will recover that 
backup if the subsequent install of the new package fails.  You can do 
that by hand with the pkg_ tools but I know I prefer it to just happen.  
You could add that to your script, but why re-invent the wheel?

portupgrade[1] also keeps copies of any libraries it uninstalls during 
an upgrade, which ought not to be necessary.  But if something was 
silently relying on one, you won't break it.

> The usefulness of the port management apps (portmaster,portupgrade) is 
> when you want to upgrade multiple ports and large amounts of 
> dependencies all at once.  They are more trouble than they are worth 
> for a single package. That is, unless you are already using them.

The other argument would be that there's no better time to get familiar 
with a tool than when you can use it to do something easy.

--Alex

[1] portmaster may do this too.  I don't know as regrettably I haven't 
found time to try it yet.  The new version is something I would like to 
try, and while I can't recommend it from personal experience, I would 
suggest trying it nonetheless.