Why FC-2?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Sat, 13 Mar 2004, Robert Middleswarth wrote:

> Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> 
> >On Sat, 13 Mar 2004, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> >
> >  
> >
> >>I find the people who airily say "Keep a copy of the old /etc"
> >>rather unconvincing.

> >um ... it's called a "backup".  you have heard of backups, haven't
> >you?  

> Reread the message he didn't say backing up the /etc was bad but that 
> tring to figuire out with of the hundreds of files in etc that are 
> import was the problem.  I know been there before.

actually, i understand pretty well what he was saying in his original
message.  it doesn't matter if there are hundreds of files under /etc, 
because you're certainly not going to have to process each one of them by 
hand for an upgrade.

the primary purpose for that directory is, if necessary, to go back and 
see how something had been configured before if your new configuration 
doesn't just flat out work.

as i've described before, my strategy for upgrading is to do a fresh 
install around my data-oriented filesystems, the ones i want to preserve 
(/home, /usr/local, that sort of thing).  i completely wipe and re-install 
over all of the filesystems, which means i lose all of my /etc 
configuration.

for the most part, running the standard config utilities is the safest way 
to add that configuration back in since you're really emulating a fresh
install.

occasionally, i'll just grab an old /etc file and copy it back.  as an 
example, i spent some time tweaking my /etc/X11/XF86Config file, so i'll 
just copy that back in place.  similarly, i'll use portions of my old
/etc/{passwd,shadow,group} files to restore the user accounts.

but, really, beyond that, there's not a whole lot more you need to do in
terms of cannibalizing your old /etc files.  so it's not really convincing 
to hear someone complain about the alleged work involved.

rday