*BSD News Article 44691


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From: Andrew Gordon <andrew.gordon@net-tel.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: update to a snap
Date: 27 May 1995 23:32:53 +0100
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jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard) wrote:
>In article <801015476k70585&1147298525r114@zurich.gcomm.com>,
>CaptBly <captbly@zurich.gcomm.com> wrote:
>>how do you update FreeBSD to one of the newer snaps without loosing
>>everything??
>
>At this time, you don't.  You back up any data you'd like to save and
>you load the snap from scratch.
>

I don't understand this (oft repeated) official advice that upgrading
between snaps can't be done.  I have gone from 2.0R->snap1->snap2->last snap
by the following:

1. Take a backup of /etc
2. Put the bindist somewhere handy and execute extract.sh
3. Edit the resulting /etc to suit my machine, maybe picking pieces
   out of my backup copy
4. Either drop in a kernel compiled on one of my other machines, or
   reboot with generic kernel, extract kernel src and compile one
5. reboot and all done.


I haven't been struck by lightening yet, so I must be doing somthing wrong!


I appreciate that some upgrades will make radical change to disk layout and
hence need a backup->clean install->restore process, but all of this year's
snaps seem to have been compatible to this extent.