[vox-tech] upgrading Mandrake packages only

[Aaron A. King]

Hi all,

I'm running Mandrake 9.1 on a few computers.  Being security-minded, I try to 
keep up with software security updates conscientiously.  This is fairly easy 
using Mandrake's RPM-based update tools (urpmi and gurmpi).  

The problem is, Mandrake has already released 9.2 and will eventually stop 
updating the 9.1 mirrors.  In the past, when this has happened, I have done a 
clean install.  This is inevitably a very painful process.  It can take up to 
a week of tinkering before I get all my machines working again according to 
my preferences.  Trying to upgrade from the ISOs usually doesn't work well, 
in my experience.

So I'm considering trying to update packages only.  It seems I can fairly 
easily tell urpmi to look at the 9.2 mirror instead of the 9.1.  Presumably, 
I would then be able to upgrade all individual RPM packages and keep up with 
updates.

Of course, anything associated with the kernel will not work this way, but I 
already compile custom kernels from source, so I don't see this as a big 
problem.  Probably I'll have to be very very careful when it comes to core 
packages like glibc.

Has anyone tried this?  Will it work?  What are the foreseeable problems?  
Aside from switching entirely to Debian, what are the options available to 
someone who has tired already of the tedious process of doing clean installs 
to keep up with updates?

Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom you can share.

Aaron King