bhay3s
......upgrade from 7.6 -> 8? I see there are exclamations indicating if you have contribs installed then you guys prefer a fresh install? or does that still apply?
No that's not quite right, no need for a fresh install.
Yoiu can do a CD upgrade, or a yum upgrade by following the yum upgrade instructions for setting new sme8 repos.
Before any upgrade, it is advisable to check if any contribs you have installed on sme 7.6 are compatible with sme8, most will be but a few need either tweaks or major rewrite of code. Refer to the sme8 wiki for links re which contribs have been tested.
The advice is to remove any incompatible contribs, and after the 7.6 to 8.0 upgrade is complete, you can then install the compatible contrib versions. Some new sme8 specific contribs have already been released.
Also you should remove or check any custom templates during the upgrade to ensure compatibility with sme8. You can temporarily move them and then move them back one by one after the upgrade (along with the applicable expand template & service restart commands), or recreate them based on the sme8 templates.