[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/ ****