On 08/01/2011 09:43 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
> On 08/01/2011 09:31 AM, Connie Sieh wrote:
>> On Sat, 30 Jul 2011, Yasha Karant wrote:
>>
>>> I considered upgrading my workstation from CentOS 5.6 to SL 6.0, and
>>> discovered that the only practical method was a partial fresh install.
>>>
>>> As I keep many important directory trees on different partitions (for
>>> reasons I can discuss under separate cover), I basically did a complete
>>> copy of the system trees from which I would need to restore files.
>>> /home is on a different partition, and thus the install did NOT clobber
>>> it because I instructed the install process not to do so.
>>>
>>> Note that I did NOT repartition the hard drives, nor did I change to any
>>> other filesystems than those already on the partitions being clobbered
>>> by the (partial) fresh install. There was a comment as I recall from
>>> Connie Sieh as to which directory trees had to be a fresh install, and
>>> those I did.
>>
>> All system directories should be part of the hard drive "format".
>> Leaving some system directories to get "clobbered" will lead to mixed
>> results. Format all system directories during the new SLF 6.x install.
>>
>>
>> >
>>> The result booted fine, and by restoring what I needed from the saved,
>>> unclobbered copies, I had everything I needed. The only glitch I had
>>> was the issue of polymorphism: I needed X86-64 as a base system, but I
>>> also needed to run a number of IA-32 applications. My Centos 5.6 was
>>> IA-32. I now seem to have solved the polymorphic issues for my the
>>> instance of my particular workstation configuration.
>>>
>>> Yasha Karant
>>>
>>> On 07/29/2011 03:25 PM, Chris Tooley wrote:
>>>> Hello all,
>>>>
>>>> Do you still need to upgrade with media to go from SL5 to SL6, or can I
>>>> do it from a CLI?
>>>>
>>>> thanks,
>>>> -Chris
>>>
>>
>> -Connie Sieh
>


To be explicit, am I correct that these system directories are:

/boot

/etc

/usr/bin , /usr/sbin , /usr/lib , and other /usr sub-directories

/lib

/var

/bin

/sbin

/dev

/sys

a swap area large enough (generally already so configured)

plus the MBR to point to the correct boot loader?

Are there others that I have forgotten?

Explicitly, /local /opt /home and /usr/local can be excluded provided 
any scripts that load drivers from these are not used for the new 
kernel/systems software until scripts and/or drivers are 
upgraded/updated as well.

Yasha Karant