Re: Converting FBSD installation to DFBSD?

[James Frazer <jfrazer@xxxxxxxx>]

Just a curious related question here:

Is mergemaster always necessary?  I haven't used it much because when I 
did use it it either confused me or broke things.

Plus reading through a whole bunch of diffs didn't appeal to me.  I 
didn't really understand what it was asking me to do.  It definately 
wasn't automatic (like the rest of the build/install process) and mostly 
turned into mindless button pressing (just to get through to the end), 
because I don't really have 2 hours available to sit around reading diffs.

Or maybe I did something painfully wrong?

It was a disaster nonetheless,


--James




Matthew Dillon wrote:
> :I have a machine with a little-used FBSD-4.9 installation which I
> :wouldn't mind sacrificing to try out DFBSD.
> :
> :So, I was wondering if I could just cvsup new DFBSD sources to
> :replace the FBSD sources and proceed to compile the new system
> :that way.
> :
> :Will a FBSD kernel run executables which are compiled for BFBSD,
> :I suppose is the obvious question.  Will the installworld
> :die in the middle when some critical bit of userland gets
> :suddenly replaced?
>
>     You should be able to do a buildworld, buildkernel, installkernel,
>     installworld sequence from a FreeBSD-4.x machine.  The installworld
>     should be able to proceed through without blowing up.  But if you
>     do a partial installworld you can end up in a no-win situation because
>     you won't be able to rebuild the world with a FreeBSD machine and
>     DragonFly includes.  Once the world is installed I would also recommend
>     running the 'upgrade' target, which will clean up the RC files, a good
>     chunk (but not all) of the stale binaries left over from FBsd, and 
>     most of /etc, before doing mergemaster.
>
>     The safest route is to burn the DragonFly CD ISO we have available on
>     our site and to blow away your disk.  Even if you decide to try to 
>     install over FreeBSD instead of blowing away the disk having a
>     DragonFly CD lying around can be extremely useful if you get stuck.
>
>     Also, if you burn a DFly CD, you can boot it without messing with your
>     hard drive to make sure that DragonFly supports your machine's hardware.
>
> 					-Matt
> 					Matthew Dillon 
> 					<dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>