how-long-can-you-keep-an-rh-installation-alive.md (1480B)
1 # How long can you keep an RH installation alive 2 3 My workstation machine was last installed with a RedHat 6.2, if I recall correctly. It has since been upgraded and upgraded, quite actively until maybe year or two ago, with packages from RedHat/RawHide and its successor Fedora/development. The machine works well enough, I would not like to break it. However, I really think I'm missing on something there. Obviously I'd like to change to debian/ubuntu, just haven't had the guts, as there may be lots of personal hacks scattered around the filesystem. 4 5 The rpm database has been totally re-build 2 times, due to bad database crashes. It took ages both times, but the result has always been a working system. The init scripts on the machine are a total mess, and there may be some packages one or two generations older than the others. Even though I do use apt-get on it, I can't always do blind upgrade, so there's usually some packages left unupgraded. 6 7 Now that the fileserver is kicking in, I've enough disk to copy all the stuff out of the machine and start from the scratch, I'm just still wondering if I should, would I get the new distro the way I want in sensible timeframe. All the HW in the system has changed during the lifetime of the installation, and yet, against all odds, it's still kicking. 8 9 All in all, don't get too attached to your OS installation, OS reinstall are certainly healthy every now and then, especially if you're using bleeding edge packages.