[Cialug] SUSE 10.1 or Debian?

[Daniel A. Ramaley]

It is possible to upgrade Debian from one version to another. A couple 
weeks ago i tried it just to see if it would work. The computer was set 
up as a desktop system, so it had a lot more stuff on it than a server 
would (and thus a lot more opportunity for the upgrade to go wrong). I 
upgraded from the Sarge/Stable distribution to Etch/Testing. I 
edited /etc/apt/sources.list and changed "stable" to testing". Then i 
ran aptitude and told it to update.

Normally when i install updates (such as security fixes and whatnot) i 
only have to run aptitude once, and reboot if a kernel update was 
included. For such a major change i think i had to run aptitude a total 
of 5 times, each time telling it to update itself. And each time it 
would download more stuff and upgrade different parts of the system. 
>From what i've read online, when doing a distro upgrade like that it is 
normal to have to run aptitude more than once. Anyway, once it was all 
done and didn't find anything else to upgrade, the system still worked. 
But it was running a new version of Debian. I was quite impressed.

During the upgrade the system stayed up. I would imagine for a simpler 
configuration, such as a web server, that the only downtime would be 
when the machine was rebooted to load the new kernel, and when Apache 
was restarted to load the new version of it. I run my servers and 
desktop Linux machines on Debian Sarge, but after seeing how easy it is 
to upgrade am thinking of moving the desktop machine to Etch. I'll keep 
the servers on Sarge until shortly after Etch becomes stable.

I don't know about upgrading SUSE. The closest distribution that i have 
much familiarity with is Red Hat. With Red Hat it is possible to 
upgrade without a reinstall (by telling up2date to look at the package 
repository for the new version, and then running it several times), but 
it is not supported, not recommended, and not guaranteed to work. The 
official path to upgrading is to do a reinstall, either over the 
existing installation or after wiping the drive. On Red Hat i usually 
do the wipe/reinstall, with data backup and restore. It is a big 
hassle, especially if the machine is one that cannot be down for very 
long.

On Saturday 08 July 2006 12:47, Carl Olsen wrote:
>I should add that I'm doing commercial web hosting on SUSE 9.3 now, so
>that's why I'm a little hesitant to go with a different distribution. 
> I have to set everything up on a different machine first to make sure
> it is all running smoothly before I move everything.  When I told my
> coworker I didn't like having to reinstall the OS every time I wanted
> to upgrade to a newer version, he said that Debian can be upgraded
> with a package without reinstalling the OS.  That would be a big
> help.  It just seems incredible to me that SUSE wouldn't have the
> same kind of thing.
>
>So, I guess my real question is whether the above statements are
> correct. Can I do version upgrades with Debian without reinstalling
> the OS?  And, do I really have to reinstall the OS to do version
> upgrades with SUSE?
>
>May these rephrased questions will stop any suggestion that I'm trying
> to start a distro war.
>
>Carl Olsen
>http://www.carl-olsen.com/
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Dan Ramaley                            Dial Center 118, Drake University
Network Programmer/Analyst             2407 Carpenter Ave
+1 515 271-4540                        Des Moines IA 50311 USA