Last modified: 2010-05-15 15:59:45 UTC
Problem: MediaWiki installation should take care of old configuration files, when old version is found. Also additional directories from old installation were not moved to the new installation directory too. Also the symlink created by my old installation of mediawiki was left unupdated. Solution: New installation should at least offer to back-up the old config files, better is to offer a "Replace (Y/N)" dialog and best is to diff the old and new files, show the diff to the user and ask to apply it to the new config files. It should also check for upload/ and images/ (probably other additional directories) and copy them to the new installation directory. My old installation also created a symlink /var/www/mediawiki pointing to my installation /var/lib/mediawiki1.10, which after upgrade is nice to be made pointing to the new installation. Details: Just upgraded my whole Ubuntu from 7.10 to 8.04 and it upgraded my other packages as well. I had MediaWiki 1.10, which the installer upgraded to 1.11.2. I lost my old configuration files and it was very frustrating. Just to mention that on that same Ubuntu upgrade, I did today, Apache installation showed me the diff of the old and new config files and asked me should it keep the old files so I take decision on what to do. I also had upload/ and images/ directories created by the old MediaWiki installation, since I have uploads enabled, as well as images uploaded already. These were not moved to the new installation directory. Well, what I did to fix all this was to manually edit again LocalSettings.php and manually move upload/ and images/ to the new location, as well as manually made the symlink to point to the new installation. But this is frustrating. Please fix this. Thanks.
MediaWiki only offers a web based installer, which creates a fresh configuration file in a separate location and leaves to to you to move it to make it go live. It does not create any symlinks. Sounds to me like you are talking about whatever the ubuntu bundle does. Talk to the bundle's maintainer then. Distribution bundes are not maintained or supported here. "apt-cache show mediawiki" sais: Maintainer: Ubuntu MOTU Developers <ubuntu-motu AT lists.ubuntu.com> Original-Maintainer: Mediawiki Maintenance Team <pkg-mediawiki-devel AT lists.alioth.debian.org>