Upgrading from 11.1 with encrypted partitions to 11.2

[Constantine 'Gus' Fantanas]

I guess this is not strictly a 64-bit question, but I have been posting
on this board since 2004.

I am on openSuSE 11.1, 64-bits, and I want to upgrade to 11.2. My
problem is that I have four partitions, /boot, /swap, /, and /home, of
which the last three are encrypted. If I remember correctly, here is how
I ended up with the current configuration:

Initially, I had normal ext3 partitions, but I was running out of hard
disk space. I got a bigger drive, which I connected to my computer (a
laptop) via USB2.0, which I fdisked to four partitions, of which I
encrypted the last three using luksFormat, created loopback devices with
'cyptsetup luksOpen', mounted them, created ext3 filesystems, and then
copied the data from the original (unecrypted) partitions. In GRUB, I
also issued kernel directives so, the kernel can at least find a root
file system. (Somehow, I cannot get the crypttab straight, the kernel
ignores it,and prompts me for the password for all three encrypted
partitions, and then I get a message that the encrypted partitions are
already assigned, but that's another story.) the system works
reasonably well.

When I tried to upgrade via an openSuSE 11.2 DVD, naturally, the DVD's
kernel could see the partitions, but displayed them as "unknown." How
can I get out of it? I am too hesitant to upgrade via 'zypper dup'.

Thank you in advance for your time.

CF