RW wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:19:23 -0600 (MDT) Warren Block <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#NEW-HUGE-DISK"The best way is to reinstall the OS on the new disk, then move the user data over. This is highly recommended if you have been tracking -STABLE for more than one release, or have updated a release instead of installing a new one." "Highly recommended" seems a very strange thing for the FAQ to be saying. It's implying that FreeBSD base-system upgrades are a bit flaky. It even goes on "Should you decide not to do a fresh install", as if to say "you have been warned". Unless my experience is abnormal, we seem to be publishing our own FUD.
When does a valid assessment of the difficulty of a certain course of action turn into an unjustified attempt to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt? This is not FUD because it is absolutely true. You will get better results by making a new install on your new hard drive and merging over your data. Aside from anything else, the recommended partitioning has changed significantly over the years, and if you try and install 7.x into a disk layout originally designed for 4.x you will be a very unhappy bunny indeed[1]. Not to mention such things as the change from UFS1 to UFS2.
Base system upgrades /across major version numbers/ are difficult. Unless you have guru-like capabilities, a fanatical level of interest
in the OS internals and a great deal of luck, then it is entirely likely that you will run into problems you will be unable to solve.The 6.x to 7.x upgrade is really the first one that I've felt happy to do by re-compiling the system in-situ: even so, getting all the installed software correctly recompiled and linked against the new 7.x shlibs requires a deal of care to make work correctly.
Cheers,
Matthew
[1] Of course, if you'ld adopted the 'one big partition' layout which
I've been known to advocate here and there, this wouldn't be a problem.
--
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard
Flat 3
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