Hifrom Melbourne down under

[Mimenta]

Hi folks
I'm new here but have been fiddling with Linux (Fedora, Mandrake, Mandriva, Knoppix, SuSe 10.1) for a while.

My XP collapsed and I have to renew the drive on my desktop business PC which means MS will tell me my original copy is now fake when I put it on the new drive and I've had a gut full of Microsoft. I'm looking to completely migrate to Linux.

I have to also buy a laptop later this year and I like the thought of telling Microsoft they lost out on a Vista sale. I figure if I am going to have driver issues, and stuff not compatible, I might as well have it with Linux rather than VISTA (I was one of the Beta testers for VISTA). At least we acknowledge our bugs and get to work on a fix, rather than deny- deny- deny, like I have had from MS here in Australia and the USA.

If I ever change to VISTA please have me certified and committed - it's enough proof I have gone insane!

[Freston]

Welcome to the forums!

Good luck with buying a lappy free of the MS-tax though. It's not impossible, but your choice is limited

[Mimenta]

Thanks

I'm running SuSe 10.1 now - what's the simplest way of upgrading to 10.3?
I have looked at the sites and there seems so many ways. It seems every way has some disclaimer etc.

I have a DSL internet connection. Any suggestions based on your own experience would be appreciated.

[Freston]

How to upgrade the smoothest really depends a lot on your setup and distro specifics. Sometimes it is a click on a button, sometimes it is a disaster.

Simplest way is always a clean install. I always take that route, as it gives me the chance to cleanup and rebuild my system from the bottom up. That said, I'm not afraid to chown and chmod between my user.old and my user.new. Many will argue that chown'ing and chmod'ing all your files back into your home dir and putting all your emails back into your email client can be just as tedious.

I have bad experiences with keeping an existing user account and accompanying home_dir between installs. This somehow tends to break little yet annoying things that are tedious to clean up.

So it's a matter of taste as much as anything else. So long as you keep good backups of your important files anything that goes wrong can be fixed

[Jonathan183]

Simplest way is always a clean install. I always take that route, as it gives me the chance to cleanup and rebuild my system from the bottom up.

I did a backup of data and a clean install. I like to see what the default install looks like first so I don't migrate my home partition either. I write important e-mails to pdf, bookmarks to html and backup photos/docs etc then wipe the partition. I like to keep real user data separate from OS/config data so tend not to use the home area for much anyway.

[questio verum]

Mimenta,

Hello and welcome to Linuxforums!


Melbourne... That's the epicenter for Great Whites, right? Isn't there a pub there where they trick the tourists into.. er... well... something involving part of a whales anatomy. Or is that Adelaide? Anyway, hope your time here is enjoyable and well-spent.

Sorry I can't be more help with the upgrade question. I always save my personal data on a separate drive and reinstall fresh.

qv

[Mimenta]

Thanks for the responses -

Updating SuSe is what I expected - clean install. I was being lazy and hoping for a magic bullet but you probably all right - start from scratch again.

It's been a crappy month - my blog site (and traffic generator for our new online store soon to be launched) got raided by an online casino sneaking in malware and Google blocked it with a "This site could harm your computer" message/page. I fixed it but it takes them 2 weeks to check and remove the warning, meantime our online business (which was starting to really look good) languishes and it kills all our Public Relations too.
Then XP dies, next my Terabyte RAiD Hard Drive system dies on the desktop PC and now I am tapping away, trying to hold it all together with an ancient laptop and an old distro of SuSe10.1. . . .Funny that - all the fancy stuff turns to custard and what do we fall back on - good ol' Linux - might be old - not be too flash - but Hey - it's reliable. (Did you hear me Uncle Bill and your MS mates - It's Reliable!)

[Mimenta]

No mate - we don't use any part of a whales anatomy - you're thinking of the Japs.

We don't need to compete with whales - no need for any artificial additives. We even get a few envious whales off the coast - come in for a look - "whale envy" they call it . . . LOL

"Epicentre of great whites" - yeah - could say that - there's a lot of awesome looking chicks here; some big ones too but I wouldn't call them "Great Whites" - there's some drop-dead-gorgeous ones in all colours.

The worst sharks we have here hang around the Magistrates and Family Courts. I'll take my chances surfing anywhere on the coast rather than face them. The fishy ones only take ya leg off. The legal ones take your home, car, kids then keep feeding off you for years afterwards . . . LOL.