Appendix A.

Upgrading Your Current System

This appendix walks you through a typical Red Hat Linux 8.0 upgrade.

A.1. What it Means to Upgrade

The installation process for Red Hat Linux 8.0 includes the ability to upgrade from prior versions of

Red Hat Linux (version 6.2 and later) which are based on RPM technology.

Upgrading your system installs the modular 2.4.x kernel as well as updated versions of the packages

which are currently installed on your system.

The upgrade process preserves existing configuration files by renaming them with an

.rpmsave

ex 

tension (for example,

sendmail.cf.rpmsave

). The upgrade process also creates a log of its actions

in

/root/upgrade.log

. As software evolves, configuration file formats can change, so you should

carefully compare your original configuration files to the new files before integrating your changes.

Some upgraded packages may require the installation of other packages for proper operation. If you

choose to customize your packages to upgrade, you may be required to resolve dependency prob 

lems. Otherwise, the upgrade procedure takes care of these dependencies, but it may need to install

additional packages which are not on your system.

Depending on how you have partitioned your system, the upgrade program may prompt you to add an

additional swap file. If the upgrade program does not detect a swap file that equals twice your RAM,

it will ask you if you would like to add a new swap file. If your system does not have a lot of RAM

(less than 32 MB), it is recommended that you add this swap file.

A.2. Upgrading Your System

At this point, you should have chosen Upgrade as your preferred installation type (see Figure A 1).

Figure A 1. Choosing Install or Upgrade