Upgrading from RH9

[Gerry Tool]

edwarner99 at yahoo.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Having to switch to Fedora from RH9 because of the
> cost, I have a few questions.
> My system is running DHCP and a Firewall.
> 
> 1. Can I even do an upgrade from the CD's instead of a
> complete install? 

That is what I did. I also did a fresh install in another partition, and 
for the first time after doing both of these, I chose to stay with the 
upgrade from RHL9 instead of using the fresh install.
> 
> 2. What (configuration files) if anything do I need to
> save?

It's a good idea to have all your home directory backed up somewhere in 
order to be able to retrieve anything.  I usually do

$ cd
$ mkdir oldstuff
$ cp -R .???* oldstuff/

before upgrade to make everthing I have available later.

Another way is to move everything to oldstuff to allow all new configs 
to be written; see copy below of a post from another person:
=========================================
I have found this trick very useful in the past when upgrading or
reinstalling a system that has a separate /home partition that will
survive the upgrade/install:

$ cd
$ mkdir oldstuff
$ mv -R .???* oldstuff/

Do this before an upgrade.  The reasoning is that many
old config files in your home directory tend to be a wee bit unsuitable
for new apps or app versions. (The .???* filemask is a hangover from the
old days - I am too chicken to risk having a command operate on . and ..
as well ;-) )

Then log in, and check things out. You can always bring back previous
configs from ~/oldstuff/ if they are too painful to recreate.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of this trick has been (for me) KDE, but
many other apps, like gaim, galeon, etc. have also benefitted from not
being forced to emulate old version configs.
===========================================

Another technique I use is to have all my own data files in a separate 
partiton called /data, and only my configuration in my home directory. 
/data doesn't get changed by any new install, so all my data files are 
preserved.  This is also handy for sharing these files between several 
versions of RH/Fedora linux I have on various partitions.
> 
> 3. Any guidance on the web--somewhere?
> 

Take a look at a lot of comments about this process in the fedora-list 
archives using the archives link at

http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Hope this helps.

Gerry