Quick Newbie Question on Upgrade to F16

indiana913 · #1 4th September 2011, 03:16 PM

I've been a Linux user for all of four months and a F15 user for about three weeks. (I checked it out when Mr. Torvalds called Gnome 3 a "Holy Mess" and I personally think Gnome 3 is beautiful and never left). My concern is that I've never had to live through an upgrade yet. I've found plenty of sites that show how to upgrade from F14 to F15, but I am curious as to what actually happens to your customization through an upgrade when F16 comes out for real. For example, this week I put Abiword and VLC on my machine and I was wondering if I will have to get them all over again when I go to F16. I have plenty of bookmarks and add-on's in Firefox and I am curious whether they will be there as well. I plan on exploring other customizations as well in the near future and I was just wondering from you more experienced folks as to what a machine is going to look like when I do go for the upgrade. Thanks...

bodhi.zazen · #2 4th September 2011, 03:29 PM

See : http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading

Personally I use preupgrade , many people use the DVD. Usually an upgrade goes "OK", but back up your data first just in case.

indiana913 · #3 5th September 2011, 12:04 PM

Thank you, bodhi.zazen. I'm not brave enough to explore Alpha or Beta, but I've got your link saved for when F16 is released. Thanks, again.

WillKemp · #4 5th September 2011, 12:32 PM

I've been using Linux on laptops for 16 years now, and Fedora since it was very early Redhat, so i've developed my own way of doing things that's reliable and always works - but isn't necessarily needed with modern Fedora versions.

When i first install Linux on a new system, i create two 15GB partitions as alternate root partitions, a swap partition roughly equal to the size of the RAM (which i don't normally use nowadays as i always have at least 2GB of RAM and it never swaps), and the rest as one large /home partition.

I install Linux to one of the root partitions. Then, when it comes time to upgrade (6 months later, usually, as i use Fedora), i do a clean install to the other root partition, making the old root partition bootable by the new system as a standby. Next update, i delete the old root partition and install the new version to that, leaving the old "new" version as a standby. That way, i've always got a known working system to fall back to. I never upgrade the current system.

That way of doing it means i've always got to reinstall everything that doesn't come as standard with the distribution, which is a bit of a pain sometimes. But it means i don't build up piles of unused stuff that i once installed to try and never bothered uninstalling. It means i get a clean system every 6 months. It also means i can test out other distributions if i want - installing them on the current standby root partition - without causing any disruption to my working system.

You do have to understand how to set up the boot loader to be able to boot into whichever system you choose, but that's not hard. I find it's best to install the boot loader to the root partition boot sector and chain load it, because that saves complications with kernel location etc.

I'm not necessarily recommending you use this approach this early into your Linux use, but just letting you know there are various ways to do it.

jpollard · #5 5th September 2011, 01:13 PM

I do the same thing as WillKemp, with one slight alteration.

I keep the old system around until I decide that the new one is working for permanent use - then I use the old partition as a backup of my newer system. This way if I have an accident, I have an immediate recovery point to go back to, and can recover the system by just booting it, then making another backup to the alternate.

In this way, I rotate the use of the two partitions, and can still have a quick recovery.

bodhi.zazen · #6 5th September 2011, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpollard

I do the same thing as WillKemp, with one slight alteration.

I keep the old system around until I decide that the new one is working for permanent use - then I use the old partition as a backup of my newer system. This way if I have an accident, I have an immediate recovery point to go back to, and can recover the system by just booting it, then making another backup to the alternate.

In this way, I rotate the use of the two partitions, and can still have a quick recovery.

I use a similar technique. I use a /data rather then a /home partition and I wait 1-4 weeks after a release (depending on laziness) , then upgrade. Usually upgrades go smooth enough, a few minor hiccups.

Have gone F10 ---> F15 without any mafor problem.

If I do have a problem, fresh install, all my data remains intact in the /data partition.

With major updates, such as from f14 -> f15 be prepared for potential problems.

nsnbm · #7 6th September 2011, 07:30 AM

Hello Readers,

Thanks WillKemp for sharing that strategy for managing new releases. My practice has been to do a new clean installation into a root partition and keep my separate /home partition which carries over the new releases, but the advantage of two root partitions is well put. One issue which I have had is the configuration files for gnome, firefox, thunderbird etc which populate the dotfiles in the /home directory. If I leave these dot configuration files intact during the new installation, then the new gnome, firefox etc. retain the same configurations as existed for the old installation, which in not always what I have wanted. So, before installing the new release I now find it serves my purposes to delete all the dotfiles that I don't want so they are recreated in the new installation in their latest "versions." Of course it is possible to delete all the dotfiles you want to delete after the installation is up and running since calling the application will re-create its dot config files. Ben.