Upgrades - updates - discuss?

[Robin Laing]

I have use RedHat since 4.(something) and I like Fedora and hope to stay 
with it.  The issue I have is downtime to do a full re-install and get 
things configured.  In the past I have had problems with 
missing/dropped/depreciate packages that have caused me headaches. 
Issues with secondary repositories not creating new packages for the 
latest FC until requested.  And all the other fun things that keep 
showing up on this forum.  For home use, I cannot afford a second spare 
computer.

With FC8 just about to come out, I am still waiting until I get F7 
working at home for my wife to allow me to move her from FC4 on her 
laptop.  I cannot take more than a day to do this and she needs all her 
applications up and running.  But some of issues are are not the Fedora 
teams fault, as the applications are provided by secondary repositories.

I came across this article that discusses rolling upgrades in contrast 
to scheduled upgrades.

http://linux-blog.org/index.php?/archives/231-The-Absent-PCLinuxOS-Release-Cycle.html

Now this is a pro-PCLinux discussion but some of the points brought up 
are interesting.  Of course they have been brought up on this and the 
users lists before.

Reading about the changes to development in F8 and later versions of 
Fedora, I wonder if it would be possible to look at doing a rolling 
upgrade instead of a release?

I have always been under the impression that a rolling upgrade wasn't 
possible.  I believe, from experience that there could be some problems 
but in general, I don't see it as impossible.

In some cases, the old configuration files just don't work with the new 
applications.

At work I am still using FC6, again due to down time needed to do a 
clean install and get all the applications working.

I have seen some cases of installing F7 rpms in FC6 and this makes me 
think that it would be possible to implement F8 rpms in F7 and possibly 
F9 rpms in F8 when it comes out.  I guess what I am trying to say is 
that by the time F9 is ready to be spun, the F8 repositories are 
carrying most if not all the software of F9 and users would be at the F9 
level.

Just a thought to make users lives easier.

-- 
Robin Laing