Greetings,
I got about a dozen replies. Thanks for trying.
I have several problems with doing an upgrade.
1. I have an fddi card which will prevent the upgrade from working.
2. My SUNWowrqd/pkginfo material lacks some evidently crucial line.
3. My /usr is only 373 MB. I need 390 MB.
4. I have lines longer than 1024 chars in /var/sadm/install/contents.
5. I have some bad links (?).
There's some more, I can't remember them all.
2 and 5 are easily fixed. I actually doubt my links were
really the problem, because I did arrange a fix for those difficulties
and the thing still failed. Nevertheless, the proof that I fixed the
links no longer exists, so I can't prove I really made them relative.
If my links were bad, they were links made by Sun's installation
program at 2.3 -- I've ***never*** changed a link from relative
to absolute. So if Sun's upgrade isn't happy, it should take up the
discussion with Sun's installation program.
Okay, so Sun's installation program left some bad absolute
links left over from installing packages. There's about a dozen more links
with absolute paths. The point being I have a version
of 2.4 running on another machine, and that machine, which never ran 2.3,
has those same dozen absolute links. If they are killing the upgrade, then
the 2.4 just shipped out won't upgrade to 2.5. So I doubt my links are
that bad, but what the heck, maybe I'm wrong.
Number 1 can apparently be fixed. There's a patch. But, since
I'm planning to ditch my Sun fddi for a Cisco fddi, I don't really care
any more.
Number 3 is more of a problem. But, yes, it can be done.
Leaving 4, plus the ones I can't remember. The fix to 4 is
to remove patches and so forth. Once enough patches are removed,
the long lines will shorten to under 1024 and things will proceed.
The net result, for me, will be to re-install. My plan is
to make my own packages and patches, so that after the 2.4 installation
is complete I apply my own patches and packages and all of a sudden,
I'm configured like before.
The re-install will have several advantages.
1. I'll have my packages and patches ready for when the upgrade from
2.4 to 2.5 fails. Call me cynical, but I've received exactly ONE reply
of an upgrade of a machine larger than a 690 that worked. I have
lots of replies of the upgrade failing. And the number of ways the
upgrade can fail is large. Maybe they'll work them all out by the
time 2.5 is ready. But 2.5 is supposed to come out in the fall.
I don't expect they can fix them all. So I expect I'll be
doing an install of 2.5, too.
2. Some of the diagnostics for fixing the 2.4 upgrade are thought
by some, at least, capable of damaging the system. Such that I'd have
to reload the disks. I don't see any point in risking it.
If trying the upgrade may render the system useless, I'm going to have
to prepare for the re-install anyway (through a combination of deadlines
and other constraints). So what's the point?
3. Getting enough patches out. Some of the patches I have installed
aren't adding to the over 1024 character line. I could remove them all.
Or I could prepare a list, and remove only the ones that matter.
Both plans are trouble. Figuring out which ones to remove is a
chore. Removing them all is a chore. Either way, I may have to reboot
after some of the removes. That takes time. And I will have a limited
time slot to do all of this. I could make a list of which patches to
remove in advance, but what if my list isn't enough? What if removing
all of them isn't enough?
4. I can get rid of my Sun fddi card. I won't have to patch, or unpatch.
Or whatever it was that's supposed to fix that problem.
There are some smaller advantages, too.
But I still maintain this is a very poor solution. I shouldn't
have to do a re-install every bloody time. I've had some Sun employees
proffer some techniques and ideas, and I guess they mean well. But
the bottom line still works out the same. I don't have time to do
their experiments and get 2.4 installed. I'm going to be doing this
on a weekend, and if you've ever called the hotline "after hours" you've
probably repented since. Thus, any problems I have with any of their
upgrade hints won't get answered till Monday. And that's 24+ hours
too late. I don't want to spend my weekends doing Sun's homework.
Yes, I could do everything they ask, but I might spend ten hours doing
it. And what if it doesn't work? Those Sun employees get to go home
whether things are fine for me or not. I'm stuck in this dump till
things work. And if Sun's going to walk away from me, then ....
I'm not going to stick my neck out for Sun. I have to have 2.4
running before Monday, and I know I can do it with an install.
There's no reason to expect the upgrade can be made to work in
the time I have available. And there are excellent reasons to expect
it won't.
Sun needs to fix the upgrade, and I can't lend them my machine
to do their upgrade development.
-- Jay Scott 512-835-3553 gl@arlut.utexas.edu Applied Research Labs, Computer Science Div. University of Texas at Austin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:10:28 CDT