Mandriva Update Process

As Mandrake 2005LE nears EOL, I am just about to update my desktop to 2006. Others seem to find this to be a smooth process, but I find it painful in the extreme, and often find it's weeks before the new system is fully productive and configured the way I like it again.

So this time, before I start doing anything irrevocable, I'm trying to come up with a checklist of things to do before and after the actual upgrade.

Before Upgrade

• Harvest list of installed RPMs so that I can detect and restore ones that I didn't get from the installer. I believe
  rpm --query --all --queryformat "%{NAME}\n"
  does the trick.
• Move aside .kde configuration files.
• Backup /etc directory so that don't lose settings for shorewall, postfix, squid, and squidGuard.
• Install CL Hyperspec into /usr/local/doc to avoid needing to redo (if it's in /usr/share/doc)
• Backup everything. For me, this means backup twice:
  • backup to removable hard drive
  • Backup to write-only media with mondo.
  • Backup music files.
  • Make personal backup CD
• Write down uid and gid information to recreate user accounts with same ids, for easy takeover of directories.
• Copy down the mountpoints or print out /etc/fstab. Mostly the installer will read an existing /etc/fstab if you want to just keep your old disk partitions and their mount points. But if you have anything unusual (I had a /mnt/music, seems like it might miss. Easy to print and might keep you from having to abort an install to collect the information.

After Upgrade

• Restore user accounts using existing uid and gids. The "primary group" in the Mandriva user tool should be the personal group.
• Set up urpmi software sources.
• Install SlimServer.
• Check rpms installed against list of installed rpms before upgrade.
• Recover salvageable user KDE settings:
  • Restore ~/.kde/.env/.init.sh from old version.
  • Akregator settings (feeds).
• Install personally-built rpms: xemacs bugfix and sbcl.
• Crush stupid startup song by editing /usr/share/apps/knotify/eventsrc
• Restore postfix configuration.
• Restore shorewall settings.
• Restore sshd settings.
• Restore squid and squidGuard settings.
• Keep classic Mandrake UI standards:
  • Touch ~/.mdk-no-desktop-launch so that process start in ~ instead of ~/Desktop.
  • Touch ~/.mdv-no_kat since kat seems to be broken or at least sucky.