Caldera OpenLinux 2.4 vs Redhat

[Kevin Buettner]

On Apr 12, 12:01pm, Victor Odhner wrote:

> So, what you're saying here is that there's no non-destructive way
> to upgrade a new distribution?

Sure there is.  Just partition your drive in such a way that you
can install several distributions at once.  Or use vmware to test-drive
a distribution before trashing your old one.

But if you mean overwrite one distribution with another in a
non-destructive way, I don't see how that could be done.

If you plan to run linux on a particular box for a long period of
time and know that you're going to upgrade it over the years with
new distributions, I suggest partitioning the box as follows:

    1 /home partition where the home directories are kept
    2 /boot partitions where kernels are kept.
    2 / partitions where everything else goes.
    1 or more swap partitions.  Since linux can have swap partitions
      larger than 128 MB these days, you really don't need more than
      one unless you plan to put different swap partitions on differnt
      disks for performance reasons.

The reason for having two /boot and two / partitions is so that you can
have install different releases or distributions without perturbing your
"stable" working one.  The /home partition where you keep all of your
work files can be shared between these different distributions so you
won't need to copy your files over.

> Since nobody answered my troll a couple of weeks ago about relative
> merits of various distributions, I downloaded a new RH system and am
> preparing to overwrite my two-year-old SUSE setup.

I remember seeing it, but decided to let others respond.  Personally,
I like Red Hat, but then again I work for them...

> I TGZ'd my home directory and a few other things of interest and
> saved 'em to my Win98 partition, figuring I don't have anything else
> to hold onto anyway.

I would pay particularly close attention to /etc.

> But don't these Linux distros have any sort of an 'upgrade' and/or
> 'competitive upgrade' option?  I've heard advice to avoid Microsoft
> upgrades when possible due to accumulations of junk in the registry.
> But I'd think one could build a Linux installer a little smarter,
> since Linux apps aren't so mystically entwined with the system.

If you're upgrading from (say) RH 6.1 to RH 6.2, there's a mechanism
for doing so.  But I think it's really too much to expect to be able
to upgrade any random distribution to (e.g) RH 6.2 and have everything
work properly.

> I am having second thoughts about RH with the recent raves about
> Caldera.  I have a plug'n'play 10/100 network card (D-Link installed
> by Cox@Home), Creative SoundBlaster 16, and Creative ModemBlaster
> V90 modem.  If there's a distro that gives better odds for a PnP
> setup, I could be sold on it.  I notice Yggdrasil (sp?) also boasts
> about strong PnP performance. 

Unless the distribution contains proprietary drivers, there is no
reason assume that you'll get better PnP support.  I don't know which
version of RH you have installed, but it seems to me that all you
need to do is find out which kernel / drivers Caldera is using and
just upgrade the necessary parts on your RH installation.

Kevin

-- 
Kevin Buettner
kev@primenet.com, kevinb@redhat.com