I did the OpenBSD 4.2 to 4.3 upgrade

I said I was wary, the instructions were detailed but not complete, the process was far from instant, and I killed X for a few minutes when I tried to fill in the blanks, but I eventually was able to upgrade my VIA box's existing OpenBSD 4.2 installation to 4.3, packages and all.

The hardest part: dealing with /etc, for which the old settings must be merged with the new files, and not hosing X but managing to replace xbase42.tgz with xbase43.tgz.

The easiest part: Upgrading each and every binary package I added to my original installation with a single line of code.

Like I said, the instructions aren't of the "for dummies" variety. There are ways to make this understandable and doable for mere mortals. I have notes.

Would it have been easier to preserve my /home partition and totally reinstall from scratch? Maybe. Maybe not. I had a whole bunch of applications installed, and I didn't want to redo all of that. I saved all my configuration files just in case, but I didn't necessarily want to hack into xorg.conf again if I didn't have to.

Long story short, I now have a working OpenBSD 4.3 box. Aside from a few points in the upgrade instructions that are less than clear or totally unclear, I was able to follow along and do it "right." Like I said, I have notes and will be either writing a supplemental on how to do the upgrade -- something you can keep with you as you go through the official upgrade FAQ, or I'll do a full OpenBSD upgrade recipe of my own.

It's not like doing an apt-get dist-upgrade in Debian, that's for sure.

Next on the block: Doing the upgrade on the Compaq Armada 7770dmt laptop.