[PLUG] Distribution Upgrades (was: Compare folders?)

Nye Walker ncwalker at gmail.com
Mon Dec 8 20:40:24 UTC 2008


On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 11:13 AM, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>wrote:

>   This brings to mind a question I've had for years: why do distribution
> upgrades become so FUBARed that folks recommend installing from scratch?
>


While I'm sure there are many reasons that this happens, it is difficult to
avoid because of all the different package revisions that happen and change
over time.  Often formatting and options of config files change, breaking
backward compatibility.  Some locations of things change, kernel modules
don't remain loaded/compiled in, etc.

It isn't just Linux though.  Windows has the same pitfall, but with the
amount of different programs and authors or software, coordinating upgrades
is madness.  So usually it is generally just easier to install fresh when
you know most packages will be using the newest versions, and not have
issues with old config files, dependencies, etc.  Package maintainers cannot
test your exact combination of software, but distribution vendors can test
the combination of software that makes it into their releases.

-Nye



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