On Wed, 9 Dec 2009, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> I am running Scientific Linux 4.3 and I want to upgrade to the latest
> version 5.4. Now, I have downloaded the two .iso files. If I install
> these, will I be able to keep my existing file system, or will the
> volume in my hard drive be erased, and hence I will have to save my
> programs and files somewhere else. In addition, what else can go wrong
> when doing this? (I will not have a problem with insufficient disk
> space.

I would definitely recommend backing up the whole machine (or at least
your home directories and /etc) before attempting that upgrade.

You should be able to do an upgrade from 4.x to 5.y without reformatting 
or repartitioning your disk(s) (assuming the disk space is arranged
apropriately - I have had /usr overfill on upgrades of that nature
but you sound as though you have that under control).

I can't quickly find it in the release notes, but the transition from 
5.2 to 5.3 had potential a bad interation between glibc and rpm,
so it was recommended that you updated glibc first:
 	yum update glibc
 	yum update
I am not sure whether you would hit that going straight past those two 
revisions but the updater on the disks probably does not know
about that wrinkle.

-- 
Dr. Andrew C. Aitchison		Computer Officer, DPMMS, Cambridge
[log in to unmask]	http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~werdna