FWIW,

In general one of my goals when installing systems is nice, quite systems.  
Fresh installs further this goal better than upgrades.  

I wrote a perl script a few years ago that helps doing upgrades.  This
script is meant for RH, but since it's fairly trivial script to begin
with, it shouldn't be hard to adapt to others distros that do package
management.  I wouldn't be surprised if there's something built in that 
does this already (this is the story of my life...).  

This script uses the rpm -Va command to do two things.  First is to build
a list of known RPM cataloged files and second is to print filenames of
files known to RPM which have been modified.  Next it does a find for
every regular file on the system.  If the filename does not exist in the
list of RPM files, it is printed.  This gives me a Q&D list of files I
will want to have handy while putting together the new install.  Of course
I also do a complete backup of the entire system.  Or most likely, we are
putting in new hardware at the same time, so the old system is left in 
place.  The point is I get a list a files that either have been modified 
or are unknown to RPM.  

I also isolate the home directories and application data in their own file 
systems, which makes backups and migrations easier.  

My $.002 worth,
rna

On 17 Aug 2003, Craig Brooksby wrote:

> > ...As for upgrading, its always something I had avoided, 
> > used a redhat upgrade years ago and then decided that
> > I would not attempt upgrades again.  So reinstall the 
> > newer version was really the only option....
> > Craig
> 
> Question from the newbie zone:  I am a RH9 user of a month or so;
> comfortable enough now to give my WinXP box to my son. So I plan to rely
> upon Linux for a long time.  (PLUG was a big factor in that feeling of
> comfort!)  It's a desktop system.
> 
> Are there any things I should be doing NOW (or avoid doing NOW) to make
> that eventual upgrade or reinstall easier?  (I'm making this up now,
> but) things like "make sure all your personal files are stored under
> /home/username" or "if you install software, make sure you.." or "don't
> ever change permissions on these folders..."  I guess I'm talking about
> principles of good housekeeping / common errors newbies make, that would
> come back with a vengeance when I update later...
> 
> If any advice, pls reply.  If not, have a good day...
> 
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