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#1 2010-01-02 04:09:33

cynicalpsycho
Member
Registered: 2009-12-22
Posts: 57

When should I do a system upgrade?

So I read over the "think and read before upgrading" post, but it just left me wondering, at what point SHOULD i do a system upgrade?

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#2 2010-01-02 04:12:14

sHyLoCk
Member
From: /dev/null
Registered: 2009-06-19
Posts: 1,197

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

Arch is a rolling distro. That means there is no particular 'stable release' or a 'safe to upgrade' point.


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sHy
ArchBang: Yet another Distro for Allan to break.
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#3 2010-01-02 04:19:38

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
Website

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

Or, if you are cautious/timid, for the major stuff - like kernel, xorg, gnome et al - you can wait a couple of days until most of the issues have been surfaced here and dealt with...


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

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#4 2010-01-02 04:20:29

ataraxia
Member
From: Pittsburgh
Registered: 2007-05-06
Posts: 1,553

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

Do system upgrades whenever you know you have time to handle something going wrong. The more often you upgrade, the less likely it is you'll have trouble. I upgrade every day and I've never gotten myself into any trouble I couldn't solve in a few minutes.

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#5 2010-01-02 04:30:15

mikesd
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-01
Posts: 788
Website

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

I upgrade once a day and this has only caused issues on two occasions. Both times the issues were non critical (texlive and cups). A downgrade of these packages fixed things until an updated package was released. I keep a livecd handy for any kernel/boot issues though I don't recall needing it. I will, on occasion, put off updating a major package (kernel, xorg, nvidia, etc) if I am busy and have a deadline to meet.

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#6 2010-01-02 04:40:33

JuseBox
Member
Registered: 2009-11-27
Posts: 260

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

Personally I only upgrade when I am physically at the computer and indeed have the time just incase anything happens.  Like others have said if you keep up on it you usually don't have anything to worry about.  Like with the last time i upgraded anything was this morning.  to the new *.32 kernal.    Something happened after i did a reboot.   xorg wouldn't start, but after i just did a nvidia-xconfig it started right up no issues. so sometimes shit happens.  everyone is different keep that in mind as well.


Linux ArchLinux 3.2.8-1-ARCH
#1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Feb 27 21:51:46 CET 2012 x86_64 AMD FX(tm)-8120 Eight-Core Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
8192MB DDR3 1300MHz | Asus m5a97 | GeForce GTX 550 Ti | 120 GB SSD

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#7 2010-01-02 04:48:14

cynicalpsycho
Member
Registered: 2009-12-22
Posts: 57

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

thanks for the responces guys, that pretty much sums it up for me. Doing the update just now actually made the process seem alot less daunting that I'd built it up in my head. I'll keep it in mind to do some research before upgrading major system files/programs.

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#8 2010-01-02 05:57:58

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

cynicalpsycho wrote:

So I read over the "think and read before upgrading" post, but it just left me wondering, at what point SHOULD i do a system upgrade?

I don't like to wait too many days between updates/upgrades because the more packages that get upgraded, the harder it is to determine which one might have caused any breakages that occur.  For that reason, I upgrade pretty much on a daily basis.


oz

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#9 2010-01-02 06:07:49

jolinfire
Member
From: France
Registered: 2007-12-21
Posts: 176

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

I do a check every single day. It helps me to be out of troubles. But, do at least a weekly update, it will be something great for your distro and your computing security.

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#10 2010-01-02 20:25:06

rwd
Member
Registered: 2009-02-08
Posts: 664

Re: When should I do a system upgrade?

The longer you wait between upgrades, the bigger the chance that you miss some comment like 'foo is now configured in file y, no longer in x'. Also read the forum before doing any xorg/kernel/hal/policykit/devicekit upgrades.

Last edited by rwd (2010-01-02 20:28:28)

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