[kwlug-disc] Can OSs demand too much?

[unsolicited]

Chris Frey wrote, On 05/14/2010 10:00 PM:
> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 06:33:04PM -0400, Paul Nijjar wrote:
>> The tools to make upgrades smoother are not perfect, but they are
>> getting better. Having said that, I am not sure how often people do
>> major upgrades in practice.
> 
> The box I'm on right now has been through two major Debian
> upgrades.  I have no reason to stop that practice either.
> 
> But upgrading is not a "fire and forget" experience.  The last time
> I did it, I actually created a VM of the system and did a trial run
> first.  That sure helped flush out any issues beforehand, while keeping
> the system in a useable state.

That's interesting. How did you go about doing that / what's the 
easiest way to do so?

With apologies, sounds like something a lot of people would like to 
know, and see. (-:

> And in the worst case, you can always purge and reinstall a package.
> I don't understand why this is any worse than a full install.

Because the former you have to think about, the latter is supposed to 
be fire and forget - and, oh boy, is it irritating when it turns out 
note to be!

Release notes! We don't read no stinkin' release notes!