Quoting Donald Tripp <[log in to unmask]>: > When you do any upgrade its always important to make a backup of > critical system files along with the user space. If you have any > special daemons running make sure to backup the config files for > those as well. From 4 to 4 there were some base level changes, so > you may have to do a bit of tweaking, but probably not much. When > you reboot make sure the grub config loads the newest kernel, so the > highest number. I'm assuming your probably running ext3, so you > should be fine. > > When you think of "upgrading" a linux system, don't think of it in > terms of a windows desktop like upgrade, but more like a bunch of > updates put together. Yes, there were some significant changes in > RHEL/SL 5, but not really any earth-shatering stuff. If you ever > look at the iso files once they are mounted, all you will see is a > bunch of RPM files. The "upgrade" will install these RPM files, and > any necessary dependencies. Many of them will simply be newer > versions of files you already have. If there are new files, or some > older files that will no longer be used, your system will just take > more hard drive space then a clean install would. If an RPM creates > a new configuration file, the original should still be there as well. > > Off the top of my head I can't think of any system specific > applications that had major configuration file changes between SL 4 > and 5. The way your network interfaces are handled will change in > 5.4, so if you made any changes to the ifcfg-eth files you will may > have to modify the corresponding network service files. > > Good luck! > > > On Dec 8, 2009, at 10:05 PM, g wrote: > >> [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. >> >> if you select *upgrade*, it _should_ be go well. >> >> have a look at; >> https://www.scientificlinux.org/documentation/howto/upgrade.5x >> >>> In addition, what else can go wrong when doing this? (I will not have a >>> problem with insufficient disk space. >> >> nothing that i am aware of. in fact, other than time frame, for me, >> it was as >> simple and smooth as doing a yum update. >> >> >> while i am at it, my thanks to scientific linux team for all their work in >> making upgrade so easy and trouble free. >> >> i would have said so sooner, but i have been busy rebuilding 2 >> fedora systems >> and '/home' in this box and one other, when i ran an update, and tried to >> upgrade them from f11 to f12. >> >> system got trash in that it clobbered superblock on 3 hard drives along with >> trashing hard drives to force me to rebuild system from blocks of >> what i found >> in fsck.ext3 in recover mode. >> >> i did have backups that made '/home' recover easier, but there where several >> bad backup dvd's that checked good when they were made. >> >> >> to that end, be sure that you back your system and '/home' and >> verify backups >> before you do any upgrade. regardless of what distrib it is. >> >> hth. >> >> later. >> >> -- >> >> peace out. >> >> tc,hago. >> >> g >> . >> >> **** >> in a free world without fences, who needs gates. >> ** >> help microsoft stamp out piracy - give linux to a friend today. >> ** >> to mess up a linux box, you need to work at it. >> to mess up an ms windows box, you just need to *look* at it. >> ** >> learn linux: >> 'Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition' http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html >> 'The Linux Documentation Project' http://www.tldp.org/ >> 'LDP HOWTO-index' http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/index.html >> 'HowtoForge' http://howtoforge.com/ >> **** >> > Thank you all for that helpful information. However, I have run into another problem. I have mounted the first .iso file but I can not find where the installation file--is it .sh or .exe?--is. Does anybody know what file to look for in order to get this started, or point me to the documentation where I can find this information? Thank You for Responding: Andrew Stallard