v5.2>v6.1 upgrade pitfalls?

[lcsc lcsc com (Leroy Smith)]

This message is to find out from all you RedHat Linux gurus out there what
advice you might have for me since I have decided to upgrade from RedHat
Linux v5.2 to RedHat Linux 6.1.

I have a Celeron Pentium II clone, Samsung 4.2G HD, a Packard Bell model
PB8539VG VGA monitor (that I now have all the stats on), a 40X CD Rom, an
Elpona SIS6326 AGP video board with 8M ram, and a HP DeskJet 682C printer.

I installed v5.2 in October, and I love it.  Even though it doesn't quite
work too well as of yet.  Hopefully 6.1 will help me overcome the 2 main
problems I am having with my Linux system:

Problem #1.  My printer prints fine when I use Windows 3.1 applications, but
will not print from Linux.  When I send print jobs to lpr, lpq says "waiting
for lp to become ready (offline?), and lists jobs in the queue.  I enabled
all in lpc, but no joy.  Printcap says ##PRINTTOOL3## LOCAL cdj550 300x300
letter {} Deskjet550 1 {} so I suspect the wrong driver has been loaded.  It
did not give me a choice of a DeskJet 582C when I installed it.  Maybe v6.1
will?  I tried to run printtool, but the display was wrong, presumably
because of problem #2:

Problem #2:  X windows will not work.  I have run Superprobe and
XConfigurator about a dozen times and I don't think it recognizes my SIS6326
SVGA video board.  Since it does not give me an SIS chipset option, I hope
6.1 will do better.

My root file system was on its knees for a while, but I finally figured out
(with the help of this list-serve) to run fsck from a single user mode, and
it fixed it.  And now I use the shutdown command when I leave Linux, and
everthing is working fine.  I have several databases that I use grep & awk
on, but I can't get the syntax down 'cause I haven't printed out the mans yet...

So we come full circle.  If anyone can suggest some tips to avoid my 2
problem pitfalls it would be greatly appreciated.  Also, when I set up the
partitions I hope to hell that disk druid works better than it did on v5.2.

I have read the install HOWTO, backed up both my windows files and Linux
files, and will be installing v6.1 from a CD ROM.

Thanks in advance.  I will be sitting in the middle of my living room floor
in the Lotus position chanting my mantra "Linux is good.  Bill Gates is the
anti-christ" over and over and over...

Leroy C. Smith
LCS Creations














Nicotine-free since 10/26/93
Microsoft-free since 10/4/99