In-Place Upgrade of SCO OpenServer 5.0.4 to 5.0.7

[Transpower]

I will attempt this upgrade in a few days. Has anyone on this forum done this?
Any pitfalls? Any problems? I checked SCO's tech article data base and found
articles 11293 ("An in-place upgrade from OpenServer 5.0.4 to 5.0.5 and then on
to 5.06 fails"), 112523 ("I upgraded from OpenServer 5.0.x to OpenServer 5.0.6
and my files from /usr/local are missing"), 105664 ("The Internet FastStart
package did not install after an in-place upgrade to OpenServer Enterprise
Release 5.0.4 or 5.0.5"), and 11542 ("I get kernel relink errors when trying to
install Merge 5 on SCO OpenServer 5"). Are these various problems fixed with
5.0.7? Are there any other tech articles I should be aware of?

Regards,
Ronald W. Satz
SCO UNIX Authorized and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Transpower Corporation
[email]transpower@aol.com[/email]
[url]www.transpowercorp.com[/url]

[tony@aplawrence.com]

Transpower <transpower@aol.com> wrote:

>I will attempt this upgrade in a few days. Has anyone on this forum done this?

Well, in my opinion that's too far back for an IPU. It might very well work, but
5.0.4 is pretty ancient and you are bound to have accumulated a lot of cruft
over the years.

I'd fresh install: [url]http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/upgrades.html[/url]


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[Transpower]

Thanks--I know that both of you, JP and Tony, prefer fresh installs. I don't.
My feeling is that the OS exists for me; I don't exist for the OS. It's sort
of like remodelling a house: I don't think I should have to move everything
out in order for the remodeller to do his work. The OS should do its upgrade
without in any way affecting existing user data and configurations. With
Microsoft I've gone from Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 to Windows NT 3.51 to
Windows NT 4 to Windows XP--all in-place and without losing any data or
configurations. SCO should try to do the same.

I do have a copy of JP's script and I do like Tony's idea of restoring a backup
to an old_files directory. Still, it's a nuisance to have to do these things.

I downloaded and installed the latest version of Tuneup (600P), as I know there
was a problem with the previous version of Tuneup and 5.07.

Transpower

[Jean-Pierre Radley]

Transpower typed (on Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 12:43:18AM +0000):

| Thanks--I know that both of you, JP and Tony, prefer fresh installs.
| I don't. My feeling is that the OS exists for me; I don't exist
| for the OS. It's sort of like remodelling a house: I don't think
| I should have to move everything out in order for the remodeller
| to do his work. The OS should do its upgrade without in any way
| affecting existing user data and configurations. With Microsoft
| I've gone from Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 to Windows NT 3.51 to
| Windows NT 4 to Windows XP--all in-place and without losing any data
| or configurations. SCO should try to do the same.
|
| I do have a copy of JP's script and I do like Tony's idea of restoring
| a backup to an old_files directory. Still, it's a nuisance to have to
| do these things.
|
| I downloaded and installed the latest version of Tuneup (600P), as I
| know there was a problem with the previous version of Tuneup and 5.07.

I have tried IPUs five times, and fixed what had to be fixed, and used
savefiles and done a fresh install about twenty, and fixed what had to
be fixed. The latter path was always faster (IPUs take MUCH longer than
fresh installs). My experience may seem irrelevant to you, yours with
MS matters, so take whichever road you find more soothing.

--
JP

[tony@aplawrence.com]

Transpower <transpower@aol.com> wrote:

>Thanks--I know that both of you, JP and Tony, prefer fresh installs. I don't.

I wonder how many upgrades JP and I have done between us? And how many have
you done?

>My feeling is that the OS exists for me; I don't exist for the OS. It's sort
>of like remodelling a house: I don't think I should have to move everything
>out in order for the remodeller to do his work. The OS should do its upgrade
>without in any way affecting existing user data and configurations. With
>Microsoft I've gone from Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 to Windows NT 3.51 to
>Windows NT 4 to Windows XP--all in-place and without losing any data or
>configurations. SCO should try to do the same.

OK, it should, But it doesn't always succeed. Upgrades are the very hardest
part of any OS install, and the older and cruftier the starting OS, the more
chance for unexpected difficulties.

>I do have a copy of JP's script and I do like Tony's idea of restoring a backup
>to an old_files directory. Still, it's a nuisance to have to do these things.

And of course it's no nuisance at all to have an upgrade fail, either miserably
or subtley.

Give it a whirl. Yopu may regret it immediately, months later, or never at all.
Let's hope for the latter.

No skin off our noses if you have trouble, right?

--
[email]tony@aplawrence.com[/email] Unix/Linux/Mac OS X resources: [url]http://aplawrence.com[/url]
Get paid for writing about tech: [url]http://aplawrence.com/publish.html[/url]

[tony@aplawrence.com]

Transpower <transpower@aol.com> wrote:

>For every three in-place UNIX upgrades, I've done one fresh install
>(approximately). Sometimes the in-place upgrade fails and I have to resort to
>a fresh install (to the chagrin of the client and myself). In those cases I've
>copied the previous files to an old_files directory, just so I can assure the
>client (and myself) that nothing is lost and all data can be retrieved, if
>necessary.

Then why ask us?

Seriously, what worries me about these things is NOT the case where the upgrade
obviously fails. That's simple to deal with if you are prepared for it and
of course only an idiot would be unprepared.

No, what bothers me is the nasty little gotchas that pop up weeks or months
later. Much more nasty to fix, and far more annoying.

I just don't do IPU's except in very simple cases.

Another point: if your OS is that old, it's probably time to upgrade
the hardware, isn't it?

--
[email]tony@aplawrence.com[/email] Unix/Linux/Mac OS X resources: [url]http://aplawrence.com[/url]
Get paid for writing about tech: [url]http://aplawrence.com/publish.html[/url]

[Transpower]

Today I did the in-place upgrade. It went quite smoothly, except that the SMP
files prevented relinking the kernel. However, my own guru, Greg at
Pacificcodeworks (makers of Tuneup), helped me out and got the kernel to
relink. So it wasn't that bad! All of you guys should buy Tuneup if you don't
have it already--the tech support alone is worth the price!

As for the hardware, you're right. The current system, a dual Pentium Pro 200
MHz system, will be replace shortly with a dual Xeon 3.06 GHz system. Same
hard drive and tape drive--I updated those months ago. I still haven't heard
from SCO about the Adaptec 39320 driver, so I'm still using the Adaptec
3940AUWD.

By the way, those new Registration Locks are really tedious. The only other
complaint I have is that the scoansi termcap is different from that of 5.04 so
my filePro (v. 4.05) screen lines are messed up. I forgot the solution, though
I remember that one had to adjust a few of the term codes. Anybody got that
handy?

Transpower

[tony@aplawrence.com]

Transpower <transpower@aol.com> wrote:

>Today I did the in-place upgrade. It went quite smoothly, except that the SMP
>files prevented relinking the kernel. However, my own guru, Greg at
>Pacificcodeworks (makers of Tuneup), helped me out and got the kernel to
>relink. So it wasn't that bad! All of you guys should buy Tuneup if you don't
>have it already--the tech support alone is worth the price!

I'm going to have to take another look at Tuneup - when I checked it
out years ago, I thought it was pretty useless. I assume that it's
probably improved a bit? Back then, it was sometimes even dangerous to
accept its advice..

>As for the hardware, you're right. The current system, a dual Pentium Pro 200
>MHz system, will be replace shortly with a dual Xeon 3.06 GHz system. Same
>hard drive and tape drive--I updated those months ago. I still haven't heard
>from SCO about the Adaptec 39320 driver, so I'm still using the Adaptec
>3940AUWD.

>By the way, those new Registration Locks are really tedious. The only other
>complaint I have is that the scoansi termcap is different from that of 5.04 so
>my filePro (v. 4.05) screen lines are messed up. I forgot the solution, though
>I remember that one had to adjust a few of the term codes. Anybody got that
>handy?

mkdev scoansi

or is it mkdev console?

One of 'em..

--
[email]tony@aplawrence.com[/email] Unix/Linux/Mac OS X resources: [url]http://aplawrence.com[/url]
Get paid for writing about tech: [url]http://aplawrence.com/publish.html[/url]

[Transpower]

It's mkdev scoansi. The lines are now there in character mode, but not in
scoterm on the desktop. I know we had to change some of the termcap codes.
Once somebody gets the answer, I'm going to make at least three copies of it:
one for my briefcase and the other two for different folders in the office.

Transpower

[Transpower]

Thanks, JP, but unfortunately that didn't work. I distinctly remember changing
some of the ansi codes in filePro's termcap to make this work. But I cannot
find the relevant notes now.

Transpower

[Transpower]

FP Technologies sent me the latest filePro termcap and that solved the problem.

Other problems with the 5.0.7 have arisen. CTAR will not create airbag
diskettes for 5.0.7! Unitrends is currently working on a fix for this.
Merge/Windows don't work. I'm going to try the supplement to see if that will
help. Hey at least by lovely filePro screens are working.

Transpower