Online distro upgrade

[Jeremy Katz]

On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 21:45 +0000, Thomas Hille wrote:
> Am Do, den 29.04.2004 schrieb Arjan van de Ven um 12:34:
> > > Well, if anaconda can handle the process when it is run from the CDRom,
> > > would it be possible to make it do its job from a running system ?
> > 
> > the really hard nut to crack is that from the cdrom, anaconda runs the
> > *new* kernel, while in a live upgrade by definition you run the *old*
> > kernel. Debian can do this because they still ship a 2.2 kernel :)
> > 
> 
> Just a stupid thought, but couldn't that be solved by using a 2.6 kernel
> running in user-space?

What about the supporting packages you need to have to run 2.6?  If
you're using LVM, you need updated LVM tools.  And newer mkinitrd,
modutils, etc.  The cascade effect is fairly non-trivial.  To the point
that it's easier to really just have people upgrade as we currently do.

Jeremy