A. Both HP and I suggest that most users upgrade their HP-UX 9.X systems to 10.2 rather than do a complete cold install of the 10.2 operating system. The cold install process wipes your root file system clean and installs the basic 10.2 operating system in it's place. All local configuration is lost. The upgrade process converts the 9.X operating system to 10.2, leaving most if not all local configuration in place.
Local configuration includes everything you've done to the operating system since you first received the machine, including internet connectivity, users & groups, passwords, user home directories, printer configuration, NFS, NIS, sendmail, peripheral installation, hostname, time zone, cron, and any software installed on the root disk.
The cold install of HP-UX 10.2 is described in the manual "Installing HP-UX 10.2" and the document Cold Install of HP-UX 10.20 on the SOO/SAC Home Page. Additional information is given in the HP manual "System Administration Tasks". I recommend the cold install only for those systems falling into one of the following categories:
As the alternative to the cold install, the upgrade process allows you to preserve the local configurations you have done on your workstation. The upgrade process requires two steps, and will likely take longer than a cold install. However, the time invested in the upgrade will save you from having to invest time in reconfiguring the system.
The steps for the upgrade process are
The first step takes the longest. The second step takes only an hour or so. You will find detailed instructions for the upgrade process in the HP manual "Upgrading from HP-UX 9.X to 10.x" and on the SOO/SAC Home Page in the document Upgrading your SAC from 9.X-->10.X.