Re: upgrading 5.x to 6.1.5 or 7?

[Brad Spencer <brad%anduin.eldar.org@localhost>]

   On 30 October 2015 at 23:38, Mike Pumford
   <mpumford%black-star.demon.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
   > I've done 6-7 on an amd64 and i386 systems as follows:
   >
   > 1. Install new kernel and reboot.
   > 2. Untar 7.0 release sets onto 6.x system (while live)
   > 3. Reboot again (probably not necessary)
   > 4. run etcupdate with the etc.tgz set as source to get /etc up to date
   > (although the system ran fine with the 6.x etc)
   > 5. Re-install all packages.

   But ... why?

   If it ain't broke, why fix it?
   And if it is broke, there's something wrong with it.

   -- 
   Ottavio



Just take care to NEVER build new packages with the new OS or try to
update existing packages from the same pkgsrc in that situation, as you
will end up with a merged mess of packages built from the older NetBSD and
the newer one which probably can't be detangled without starting over.  It
is pretty easy to make a local meta package that builds the package list
you need for your system types and just call upon that to rebuild the
packages when you are happy with the new OS install.  Also, while an older
modular X from NetBSD 6.x will probably work with NetBSD 7 in a lot of
cases, you probably will want to use the included one and you will
probably want your packages built against it.  Again mostly to avoid a
merged mess and to keep space needs down.  For NetBSD 7.0, /usr got larger
with the included /usr/X11R7, but /usr/pkg was reduced in size because it
didn't carry along a copy of modular xorg.

I have a laptop that I have taken from NetBSD 6.0 to NetBSD 7.0 passing
though 6.1.x along the way.  It runs Xen and several VMs.  I also rebuild
my packages every quarter to get the security patches which is a required
behavior if I want to run an "off the reservation" OS at work.




-- 
Brad Spencer - brad%anduin.eldar.org@localhost - KC8VKS
http://anduin.eldar.org  - & -  http://anduin.ipv6.eldar.org [IPv6 only]