Upgrade to Suse 10.3

[icebreaker]

I desire advice on upgrading to Suse 10.3 - from Suse 9.1 Pro. I would consider my experience level as a little beyond newbie. I have been running 9.1 since it's release (whenever that was).

I have 9.1 running on a Pentium III (an old Gateway brand GP7-500, maxed out at 384 Meg RAM) and all is well. I use it as an Apache server (closed home network) for a few networked applications and mostly for learning (MySQL, PhP, etc.). I would like to upgrade to the new release, but have some concerns:

My first concern is the boxed set (my intended method) appears to only include DVD (dual layer) and I don't know if my DVD ROM supports dual layer. How do I find out? I also have another old PC on the network with no DVD capability that I want to use as a workstation for typical office-type work. Can I install to that PC over my network, assuming I can read the DVD?

Secondly; The pre-Novell Suse 9.1 Pro came with 5 CDs + 2 for 64 bit and included all the software I needed. Does the boxed set DVDs include updated versions of all the software that was on the earlier release; specifically the server applications?

Third; Am I correct that if I install 10.3 on the 9.1 PC I loose everything currently on the 9.1 system? Put another way - does the 10.3 install detect valid contents in /home or /srv directories (for example) and leave them alone?

If I could afford it, I would acquire a new PC with adequate RAM and newer hardware but ... Because I don't have a spare computer to dedicate to 10.3, what should I backup from the 9.1 system that would allow me to revert back if necessary?

Thanks for any advice you can impart,
Jim

[daark.child]

If I were you, I would not do an upgrade because there are a lot of things that have changed in openSUSE since the 9.1 release. A clean installation would probably be better and less problematic.

An upgrade does not usually result in /home and /srv being overwritten but a clean install may do this if /home and /srv are not on separate partitions.

[gogalthorp]

If your /home ans /srv directories are on separate partitions from root then you can tell the installer to skip formating of those partitions and just mount them. This will save your current personal (home) data and settings. But those settings may not be right for the new OS and GUI so most likely you will need to redo your desktop.

384 meg of RAM is a little lite for 10.3 It will run but........

[wianb]

The questions to ask yourself are these:
1. Does my current system/setup/ver do what I want it to do?
2. Is it stable?

If the answers to both of those are yes then leave well alone!

[peteh]

The questions to ask yourself are these:
1. Does my current system/setup/ver do what I want it to do?
2. Is it stable?

If the answers to both of those are yes then leave well alone!

That's a very reasonable approach but the upgrade might do something new that you don't know you want yet! And of course human nature is such that we often want the newer version of things (eg cars).
I would be inclined to try it without formatting the 2 directories you want to keep (with the provisos mentioned earlier - it only works if they're on a different partition). You can always go back if you have problems.

[thewils]

That's a very reasonable approach but the upgrade might do something new that you don't know you want yet! And of course human nature is such that we often want the newer version of things (eg cars).
I would be inclined to try it without formatting the 2 directories you want to keep (with the provisos mentioned earlier - it only works if they're on a different partition). You can always go back if you have problems.

If the machine has been running for some time, IMHO it's worth installing new SuSE on a new disk, then mount the old ones and copy your data across. If the install goes tits up you can always revert to the old disks while you figure out what happened.