Upgrades, Installs, etc.

[JerryWo]

I'm using FC7 and am quite delighted with my computer the way it is. Dan, the Community Manager who wrote that lengthy sticky regarding "Upgrades vs. Fresh Installs" makes me wonder, "what happens if I just park here on FC7, i.e., no upgrades? I have faithfully updated my computer at each prompt.

A lot of folks write in to say that a separate home partition is the only way to go. I think I see the wisdom in that, but, when installing Fedora many months ago, I chose the default of a boot and lvm partition. Perhaps future installations should better articulate the rationale for a separate partition and provide instructions on how to create one. That begs question #2, "Now, after the fact, how do I safely create a partition and move my /home directory there?"


I run a backup external hard drive with a little rsync script. I backup quite frequently, So I've got a fresh copy of /home/Jerry.

On my G4 Macintosh, upgrades are painless. I wonder how they manage?

I can well understand the appeal of upgrading, especially for those of us with moderate computer skills. I'm not so sure i really like the philosophy of "fresh installs being inherent with Fedora....".

I tried to upgrade from FC7 to FC8 using preupgrade. It downloaded the packages, etc., but it gets hung up in the "retrieving images/stage2........" following the reboot and the usual machinations with "noapic". So, if want to get to FC9, I still have to traverse the upgrade to FC8....but first, that /home partition.

Whew
Jerry W

[JN4OldSchool]

You have to understand the reason for Fedora preferring you do a clean install is the nature of this distro. You also have to consider the myriad skill levels of all us users. I did the preupgrade route from F8 to F9 and i was pleasantly surprised how well it turned out. I did, of course, need to use yum utilities to weed out a ton of dupes and problems, but it went fine. Was it "easier" than a clean install would have been? I dont know...

Can you park on F7? Sure! Why not. Others will tell you no, because you will no longer receive security updates and new kernels. I say so what! Linux is secure. If you arent guarding any national secrets and you accept the slight risk you should be fine for a couple years. But really, this kind of defeats the purpose of running Fedora. I personally cant take not having the latest version installed. Maybe you should check out CentOS?

In your position I think I would just run F7 into F10. In the meantime, back up your personal stuff and do some research on LVM vs regular partitioning. I will not suggest either one, you have to decide. But you should plan out a good partitioning scheme and reflect on all the mistakes (if there are any) in your current install. Things you would change. Then, I would do a clean install for F10 and then consider upgrading every OTHER release. In other words, upgrade to F11. Clean install for F12. Upgrade to F13. This will keep the trash weeded out every year and will still keep you current. Of course, my opinion on this subject is constantly changing in light of new developments. This is how i feel at this time. But you need to do what is right for you.

[Dies]

Originally Posted by JerryWo

On my G4 Macintosh, upgrades are painless. I wonder how they manage?

I can well understand the appeal of upgrading, especially for those of us with moderate computer skills. I'm not so sure i really like the philosophy of "fresh installs being inherent with Fedora....".

Sounds like you're just using the wrong distro to me. Of course continuing to use something that you're not too happy with is your choice.

But my suggestion is to go with something Debian based -> Ubuntu.

[JerryWo]

Thanks "Old School" (Dies too)
After I built this computer, I did a lot of "distro-hopping" and one of the reasons I eventually settled on Fedora was the quality of the responses in the forums which, of course, says quite a bit about the folks using Fedora. Your considered response reinforces that opinion! Thanks
I poked around a bit and, even in the Ubuntu and CentOS crowds, fresh installs appear to be the favored approach. I think your advice (clean install of F10) is sound and I'm leaning in that direction, including your suggestion of alternating fresh installs with upgrades. As much as I like F7, it might be F12 when I make the switch!
My whole point of setting up a Linux box was to wean myself from my Mac. I love the Mac but I wanted to see if I could replicate the Mac functionality in the open source world. I got a nice little push from Mr. Jobs when I "upgraded" Quicktime and lost considerable functionality, which I had to then purchase back for $30. Now my iPhoto is choking to death with my 15,000 photos whereas on the Linux box, it's just nested directors/files.
Again, thanks for the advice.
Jerry W

[JerryWo]

Yum upgrade from Fedora 7 to Fedora 8 went just fine after 1.2GB download. I never could get the preupgrade route to work. Now with F8 running, this will give me time to ponder repartitioning my drive and doing a clean install, perhaps on F10. Thanks for your advice.
Thanks
Jerry

[marcrblevins]

Fedora 10? Not released yet. Using rawhide?

[JohnVV]

after FUBARing fedora 4 the first time LVM was " new" I decided that on 5, after FUBARing it to ,I would use a custom layout
---------
dev/sdb1 10 gig ntfs to share with sda windows xp
dev/sdb2 128 gig mounted partition -- data and storage
dev/sdb3 78 meg /boot
dev/sdb4 extended
dev/sdb5 5 gig / home
dev/sdb6 3gig swap
dev/sdb7 45 gig / fedora 5 ,6 ,7 ,and now 8
----------------
this way i can wipe the fedora install on dev/sdb7 with out killing my data . At some point I am going to need to redo this
see the link in my sig. for and example of some of my data

[JerryWo]

Thanks for the partitioning tips John...I shall probably wait for F10 to come out and then do a clean install.

and Macrblevins....nice compilation of scripts. I use a simple little RSYNC "script" (if it could even be called that) to backup to an external hard drive. Looking at yours is an education. Tanks!


Jerry

[JohnVV]

you may want to but the boot on sda1 and the os on sda2
with mine on sdb7 ( the outside of the disk ) is is a little bit slower than if it was on the first or second ( center of the disk)