Hey SuSE Users!

[Bruce Marshall]

On Saturday 28 December 2002 8:21 am, kbb0927 at cs.com wrote:
> Hello SuSE Users,
>
> Few questions.  I have SuSe 8.x on all of my machines except for my
> server. This is a home lan.  I still have 7.2 on it. The majority of
> the users ( my wife and kids) are windoze users and access data via
> a very stable samba config. I want to upgrade to 8.0. Now the
> questions:
>
> 1.  Is it advisable, or leave well enough alone?

Do you have enough space on the server to install 8.0 alongside of 7.3?   
That would be the best way and  a) take your time, b) you have all 
previous config files avail., c) no pressure to do a fast job.

And take really good notes for next time.  :-)

I never do upgrades  (except once and things broke so badly I will never 
try that again)

> 2.  What will it break?  ( I upgraded a 7.3 box to 8.0 without a
> hitch!) 

Not much with 8.0.   8.1  was a disaster and I dropped it.

>  3.  Any oops with samba?  Will I have to reconfigure it?

Not really...  just save your  /etc/samba/smb.conf files

> 4.  Any oops with BRU?

Not that I am aware of... I'm still using it.  One possibility is that 
the mt command is different and I had to keep an  'mtold' copy around 
but I think that dealt with scsi tape drives and the 'seek' command.

> 5.  Any issues with KDE?  (I only use it for graphical stuff once in a
>     while)

Nope.

> 6.  I have 8.1, but 8.0 actually seems more stable, any thoughts?

8.1 uses CUPs instead of LPRng and I couldn't make it use some of the 
filters I have...   Also uses grub but that shouldn't be a problem .  
But it wasn't a good release and had some major problems.  Broke a lot 
of things for me.

> 7.  I have separately partitioned /home and /public drives, I plan to
>     leave them that way, and issues?

I do the same...  No major issues.

> 8.  How major is it to set up ssh instead of telnet? ( my server sits
>     behind a firewall, I have an 8.0 box as a secure gateway to the
>     internet, on a cable modem.  Telnet is only used by me internally.
>     I have no access from outside, no apache, etc.)

Mon Dieu!!!   Do it... ssh is a snap to set up.  Almost nothing to it but 
I always put  ssh on  a high port  (like 11xxx) instead of port 22.  
Makes it even more secure against any possible exploits that might come 
along.


> 9.  Any suggestions, experiences, watch out for this, make sure to do
>     this?
>

Just take good notes and tell the list about any problems you have.  (my 
list for upgrades is about 50 items long but most of it is for 
reference.)

Figure on an 8 hour day (at most) to do the install and reconfigure.

> Thanks in advance for any advice.  As I said, nothing is broken, just
> wanted to get up to a more modern version of SuSE. If there are major
> issues, I will leave it as it is.
>

8.0 is well worth it.



-- 
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ Bruce S. Marshall  bmarsh at bmarsh.com  Bellaire, MI         12/28/02 
08:26  +
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything 
or
  to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking." - Alfred 
Korzybski