upgrade to fedora from shrike

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To: shrike-list redhat com
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 08:43:34 -0800

> I have been using yum to update packages and everything seems to work
> ok. Also noticed that some Fedora users use a port of apt-get. What is the
> "official" package updater for Fedora? Which works best apt-get port or
> yellow dog updater?

I mucked about with yum a bit and it didn't seem to be able to figure out that it needed to use an http proxy, even though that was set in /etc/profile, as well as yum.conf. apt-get worked like a charm though, and I've been using it with great results - fills the role of up2date from my RH8/9 days.

> Someone posted that you can do a live update (dsl/cable) to fedora. Has
> anyone tried this and how?

Absolutely, I've remotely upgraded several RH8/9 boxes to fedora, and they remained up and running, and in service, the whole time (It took several hours, but as I said, I was logged into the boxes watching the upgrade process the whole time)

The basic idea is this:

install apt.
run the following commands to get your system up to date and ready for upgrade
```
apt-get install
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
```
edit the /etc/apt/sources.conf to point to fedora core 1 repositories instead of RH8/9 or whatever
repeat steps from #2 and watch as system is upgraded to fedora core 1
I ran into a few snags where rpm complained during the upgrade about file conflicts - in every case it was something to do with perl and perl-cgi, etc. I removed the offending packages with rpm -evv —nodeps and then continued with the upgrade by re-issuing the command "apt-get dist-upgrade".
When all is done, the system will be basically upgraded, except for the kernel, and will still be running on the old kernel with pretty much everything else upgraded. At this point, you can say "apt-get install kernel" to install the fedora core kernel, and at a time of your choosing, you can then boot into the new kernel. The one thing I found I had to install manually was fedora-release. "apt-get install fedora-release" cleared that up.
after you're up and running on the new kernel. you'll say "wow, the debian fans had a point!" You can add a nice graphical update tool by typing "apt-get install synaptic", and then begin pointing and clicking your way to cool new programs of all sorts.
```
>  What if it fails? Linux box is gateway...
```

Depends on the nature of failure - possibly if you had too little disk space it would fail partway through - but barring something like that or loss of internet connection during the upgrade process, it should go just fine. In any case, it deals with problems much more gracefully than a normal install would.

Joe