How does system upgrade handle files in /etc ?

[danfluidmind]

Hi all.

I understand ArchLinux is easily upgraded from one release to the next. My question is, how does an entire system upgrade handle the files in /etc ? For instance, in FreeBSD when I do a "make world" from version 6.0 to version 6.1, it does a diff on those files in /etc that have had things added to them in the new release and allows me to add those things in manually so that I don't mess up the changes I've made. What happens when you upgrade ArchLinux from an old release to the latest and the new release has things that it has changed in /etc ?

Thanks
--Dan

[oz]

In most cases, Arch leaves your current files alone and simply installs the new files as "*.pacnew" files so you can go in and edit them as desired, then replace the old files. You can also set pacman so that it won't upgrade certain files.