At Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:07:36 +1100 (EST), Craig Dewick
<cdewick%lios.apana.org.au@localhost> wrote:
Subject: upgrading from old 2.4.x to 5.0.x
>
>
> I've got a system (Sparc 20) running a quite old version of NetBSD (2.4)
> and I noticed that NetBSD is now up to 5.0.x.
>
> For anyone who's upgraded from old to new releases, what is the best way
> to go about it?
It probably depends on what your machine does, what applications are
installed and in use, and whether you want to upgrade them up too or not.
Though I haven't done it on a NetBSD/sparc machine, nor with an upgrade
from such an older release, you might want to try the "sysinst" upgrade
procedure by booting from new install media (eg. a 5.0 sparc cd-rom).
It might be easier though to build/acquire the install sets and a new
kernel, install and boot the new kernel into single-user mode, unpack
the non-"etc" set(s) and then run etcupdate with the new "etc" set(s)
and merge/install config file updates as desired.
roughly like this:
mv /netbsd /netbsd.old
gzcat /RELEASE/sparc/binary/kernel/netbsd-GENERIC.gz > /netbsd
reboot (into single user mode)
cd /
for tgzf in base comp games man misc text xbase xcomp xfont xserver; do
pax -rz -p e /RELEASE/sparc/binary/sets/$tgzf.tgz
done
etcupdate -s etc.tgz:xetc.tgz
exit (i.e. continue up into multiuser mode)
The hard way might be to acquire a new boot disk (you'll probably need
one soon anyway as sparc-20 disks are all long past their best-before
date), install it in your machine and install netbsd-5 onto it, then add
the old disk your updated system and move all your user files back and
configure your system as desired -- everything old is new again!
--
Greg A. Woods
Planix, Inc.
<woods%planix.com@localhost> +1 416 218 0099 http://www.planix.com/
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