It hasn't bitten me yet, but it's something I have to think about every time I update my TWiki. I think asking someone to rename a file (that probably needs edting anyway before use) is cheap insurance compared to having to completely puzzle out their configuration again.

Ultimately, it would be great to have an installation script that took a distribution out of a dist directory tree and interactively queried the user about files changed from the last distribution install, or does some sort of RCS checkin of new distribution with locally changed pages. As it is now, I believe that, for instance, you lose your TWiki Preferences etc. on a full install.

-- DavidLeBlanc - 31 Jul 2001

Actually David, such change will be a bother for those of us that use some sort of versioning system to keep our local versions. I personally like to have all my documents current, but I do little tweaks here and there so that it's all closer to what I want, that means that I cannot install a distribution blindly.

The easiest way to deal with this (if you want to avoid the learning curve of a versioning tool) is to generate a diff between the original distribution configuration and the one you modified. And then apply that diff to the new distribution.

The optimal way is to use CVS or some other versioning system to track the distribution sources alongside your local ones.

-- EdgarBrown - 31 Jul 2001