[Mono-list] Upgrading Mono from source release: protocol

[Abe Gillespie]

I've been wondering about this for a while now, and since I'm running
more and more sites on Mono, I figured it'd be nice to have an
official process in place.  What is the best and official way to
upgrade Mono?  The scenario here is compiling from source.

What I usually do is this:
1.  Download all the source packages into
/usr/local/src/mono-<latest-version> (libgdi, mono, xsp, and mod_mono)
2.  Unpack everything.
3.  Configure and build each.
4.  Navigate into the /usr/local/src/mono-<previous-version> dir and
run the "make uninstall" script for each package.
5.  Navigate back into /usr/local/src/mono-<latest-version> and run
the "make install" script for each package.
6.  Finally, I delete the <previous-version> sources and tar and zip
the <latest-version> sources.

A couple of questions:
1.  Is there an easy way to install multiple versions in parallel and
then switch back and forth by a simple config? - if you recall, I had
an issue a couple of weeks back that took my storefront down when I
upgraded my Mono version.  It was pretty painful to switch back.  It
would be nice if I could quickly revert, via config, to the previous
version.  That way I could go back and forth and test until I could
get things stable.
2.  Is there any easier way to do what I'm doing here?
3.  Is there a guide?

If no on 3), then if you can give me some pointers then I'd be happy
to put a guide together myself.

Thanks for the help, all.  Great work, as always!
-Abe