Re: [vox] Ponder, ponder... perhaps a silly notion

[Rick Moen <MAPSrick@linuxmafia.com>]

Quoting Richard S. Crawford (rscrawford@mossroot.com):

> I didn't realize Xandros was selling the old Corel OS again.  Hm, I
> think I have an installation CD of that one hanging around here
> somewhere...

Corel Linux OS is even still a feasible (if antique and a little
problematic) way to build a Debian system:  It's semi-compatible with
Debian 2.1 "slink".  But Corel's KDE 1.1 packages were very messed up.
Upgrading from CLOS to modern Debian requires removing all of Corel KDE
1.1 _and_ 100% of the Qt-dependent Corel admin utilities, which also
disables X11 itself (because Corel furnished no non-KDE window
managers).  So, you must partially dismantle it and make it user-hostile
before you can upgrade it -- which is therefore not recommended.

On the other topic:

Just to further clarify, in the part where I replied "Yes.  But...." to
your question about preserving as much of your existing files as
possible, I _didn't_ mean that /home is the only tree whose files pose
problems when carried forward.

I meant that stuff you might want to _preserve_ is in /root, /home,
/usr/local, /etc, and /opt -- possibly with the addition of specific
parts of /var (such as /var/www, if any).  But, with some of those trees,
you can't just carry them forward unproblematically.

The big "can't" item is /etc:  You just can't drop one distribution's
/etc tree into a different one.  It doesn't work.  But, of course, you
might have a great deal of "local state" (machine configuration work)
invested into your existing RH8 box's /etc/* files.  Even though you
can't just carry it forward, you'll surely want to keep an archived copy
of /etc's contents around for _reference_, because you'll want to refer
to them in recreating your desired local state on the replacement
distribution.

Therefore, do this:

  $ su -
  # cd /
  # tar cvzf etc-rh8-2003-01-08.tar.gz /etc

The resulting file should be small enough that you can, if need be, 
copy it onto an MS-DOS formatted floppy for archival purposes:

  # mcopy etc-rh8-2003-01-08.tar.gz a: 

And, of course, you can move it somewhere where it will be safe during
the system rebuild:

  # mv etc-rh8-2003-01-08.tar.gz ~rscrawford

In contrast to /etc, the /root and /home trees shouldn't be a problem
(except, in a minor way, dotfiles, as mentioned previously).  /usr/local
can, by definition, be carried forward unchanged.  (That's the whole
idea behind it.)  /opt, ditto.  (On my systems, /opt is a symbolic link
to /usr/local/opt .)  For /var, you just have to use your judgement on
individual pieces you decide to keep.

'Hope that helps.
 
-- 
Cheers,               "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental,
Rick Moen             and should not be construed."
rick@linuxmafia.com                                -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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