Sun Managers,
Yesterday, I wrote:
> We're thinking of upgrading our SPARCstations from SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 4.1.2
> (Solaris 1.0.1), and I have a few questions:
>
> 1) Is it worth doing? What will it buy us?
>
> 2) Are there any new bugs in 4.1.2 to worry about?
>
> 3) Does the upgrade process itself go pretty smoothly?
>
> 4) Why have I gotten the impression that I need to (should?) reformat my
> disks for this? I've seen vague references to this in other messages,
> but I can't find anything in the release notes.
Thanks for the quick responses. Here's a summary of what I learned:
> 1) Is it worth doing?
In general, everyone agrees that it's worth doing, although a couple of
people said that it was more trouble than it was worth. One person passed
on a RUMOR (note, just a RUMOR) that there were enough problems still in
4.1.2 that Sun was going to delay 5.0 (Solaris 2.0) and release 4.1.3 first.
If that turns out to be true, it might make sense to wait for 4.1.3 instead
of installing 4.1.2.
> 1) What will it buy us?
The main things that people mentioned were:
- Lots of patches and bug fixes (about 300 of them).
- Quicker reboots, due to a faster and smarter "fsck" algorithm.
- Support for MP systems (doesn't apply to us).
- An updated "/etc/format.dat" file.
> 2) Are there any new bugs in 4.1.2 to worry about?
There are some leftover bugs from 4.1.1 (and before) that were not fixed in
4.1.2, and there are new patches for these. In addition, people said that
they had problems with the following:
- New "sendmail".
- Asynch I/O.
- Multiprocessor systems ("mmap").
- GS and GT graphics performance.
- OpenWindows 3.0/textedit core dumps (not a 4.1.2 problem, per se).
- OpenWindows 3.0/NeWSprint 2.0 don't mix.
- A few security holes.
> 3) Does the upgrade process itself go pretty smoothly?
This one got a resounding "YES"! Almost everyone has been very impressed
with the "sunupgrade" program. Typical upgrade times seem to be about 40
to 45 minutes, which is great. A couple of people reminded me that the
"sunupgrade" program only works if you are upgrading from 4.1.1. Otherwise
you need to do a full install.
> 4) Why have I gotten the impression that I need to (should?) reformat my
> disks for this? I've seen vague references to this in other messages,
> but I can't find anything in the release notes.
This was the crucial question. As it turns out, you do *NOT* need to
reformat a disk when you upgrade from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2. I got a message
from Celeste Stokely (celeste@stokely.mtview.ca.us), who says that she is
the person who started this rumor, that it is completely false, and that
she knows of several systems that have done this successfully. Everyone
else agreed with her.
Thanks to the following people for their responses:
Bill Shorter bill@aloft.att.com
Brent Alan Wiese brent@crick.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu
Don Baune don@doug.med.utah.edu
Charles H. Buchholtz chip@midnight.seas.upenn.edu
Birger Wathne birger@vest.sdata.no
Larry Chin larry@cchtor
John Lees lees@cps.msu.edu
Dave Yearke yearke@calspan.com
Celeste Stokely celeste@stokely.mtview.ca.us
Kevin McElearney kevinmac@ll.mit.edu
Terry Rosenbaum tlr@toy.rad.msu.edu
Hal Stern stern@sunne.East.Sun.COM
Jonathan Corbet corbet@stout.atd.ucar.edu
Brian H. Powell brian@natinst.com
Phil Blanchfield phil@dgbt.doc.ca
Marc Phillips phillips@athena.Qualcomm.COM
J. Matt Landrum mdl@cypress.com
Bill Bathurst bathurst@noaapmel.gov
Jim Wills jwills@deltam.com
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