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From: cagney@chook.ua.oz (Andrew Cagney - aka Noid,285,5585,3362395)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: The Upgrade Process
Message-ID: <776@augean.OZ>
Date: 22 Mar 90 10:51:31 GMT
References: <589@fsu.scri.fsu.edu>
Sender: news@augean.OZ
Lines: 26

From article <589@fsu.scri.fsu.edu>, by nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall):
> And I STILL maintain that it is pitiful to see a note that says, in
> effect, "I have Minix 1.2 and want to go to 1.5" or something similar.

I'd say there are two problems

	1. People wanting to do an upgrade from a stable to a new sable
	   platform (eg 1.2 -> 1.3) and
	2. Those trying to catch up to the leading edge (1.3 -> 1.5.5)

The first problem can be solved either by 1. Buy the PH upgrade kit (money) or 
2. fetch an upgrade kit from an ftp site (time).

It's the second case that is the headache. Ast has made the upgrade process
heaps easier than last time, but it does still need a little more work. 
I don't expect it to ever be perfect :-(.

The thing that is missing is an easier path (ie direct upgrade kit) to the
version currently being tested. If some one falls behind/misses a posting
then they could fetch the relevent part, apply its patches to the official
starting point and be up to date.

I'm working on making such a kit available for ftp. Sorry this won't help
people that don't have ftp access.

					Andrew Cagney