From: Mike Hudson (mjhudson@uwaterloo.ca)
Date: Fri Sep 20 2002 - 09:01:53 EDT
Realized that I never summarized this thread! Here it is better late
than never.
Thanks to alan@nabeth, Tom Blinn, Ed Brewer, Steve herber, James
Caldwell.
> I am currently running 4.0E. It seems wise to upgrade to the latest
> version, 5.1A.
>
> According to what I have read it seems that either I do
>
> A) an upgrade via 4.0E -> 4.0F -> 5.0A -> 5.1A
> or 4.0E -> 4.0G -> 5.1 -> 5.1A.
Several people recommended avoiding the top route via 5.0A,
so I will go the bottom way, stopping at 4.0G to see how well it goes
there (at least there are patches available for that one) then decide
whether I need to go to 5.1A or not.
According to
http://www.tru64unix.compaq.com/docs/base_doc/DOCUMENTATION/V51A_HTML/ARH8SDTE/PDTVCHPX.HTM#what-version-sect
the jump from E straight to G (skipping F) is OK. On the other hand
several compaq/HP people have said I have to install F first.
> (Despite lore on this site that letter upgrades are free, Compaq/HP is
> telling me that I have to pay for each step, so this will be quite
> expensive!)
Tom Blinn confirmed the above "So the update for the base OS from V4.0E
to V4.0G is "free for the cost of media" that is, you need to buy the
media kit.
However when I asked Compaq resellers about the cost of the *media kit
only* for 4.0G I was told it was approx $600 CDN. Seems like a lot for a
CD-ROM ...?
(Unfortunately our University cancelled their general licensing deal
with Compaq citing it as too expensive for the small number of Compaq
systems on campus).
> B) Do a fresh install of 5.1A.
Opinion was split on upgrade vs fresh install. Some had no problems,
others recommended fresh install.
> So my questions are
>
> 1) For DEC/Compaq software products like FORTRAN, will the old software
> load and will the PAK licenses still be valid or do I have to buy these
> again?
>
> Does the answer to this question depend on whether I choose option A
> (upgrade) or B (fresh install)?
It was pointed out that the for both the base OS and the layered
products license PAK will still work BUT
"the license PAK is NOT the license, and unless you buy an
update license (for the base OS, in this example), you have no right
to use the software."
> 2) Will the binaries and libs that I compiled myself under 4.0E -- like
> rsync, postfix, procmail, VNC, perl and about 60 others -- living on
> /usr/local still work (in general)? Or will I have to build them again
> (ugh!).
The consensus here was that, in all likelihood most packages would work,
(unless they depended in intimate knowledge of the kernel, or
undocumented interfaces etc) but it could not be guaranteed.
One exception noted was " Any package built with libnls.so will need to
be recompiled. You can run ldd on each program to see if it links that
in."
> 3) If I choose option B, what other steps will I have to take to set my
> system back the way it was. Clearly I will need to copy the config files
> in /etc esp /etc/passwd, /etc/fdmns ... ?
For a new install, just save everything and copy back what is needed.
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