FW: going to FC4

[Paul Howarth]

Steven C. Liu wrote:
> Paul also wrote:
>  
> "If you can put the DVD ISO on a separate partition (not LVM, not your 
> root partition), you should be able to do a hard disk install:
> http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/fedora-install-guide-en/fc4/sn-installing-from-harddrive.html"
>  
> Ok, I went to that link and it doesn't actually tell me *how* to get to 
> that point.  I can yank my large external USB drive from my server and 
> attach it to the box I want to upgrade.  Now what?  Do I run 'autorun'?  
> How do I fire up anaconda?  Sorry if I need so much handholding...

As you have an already-installed FC2 system (presumably using grub), 
this won't be too hard.

Let's assume that your USB drive partition containing the DVD is mounted 
and the ISO can be found at: /mnt/usbdrive/FC4-i386-DVD.iso

The best solution would be to extract the boot.iso file from the DVD ISO 
and then burn that to a CD and boot from it:

# mkdir /mnt/iso
# mount -r -o loop /mnt/usbdrive/FC4-i386-DVD.iso /mnt/iso
# cp /mnt/iso/images/boot.iso /root
# umount /mnt/iso

You could at this point burn the /root/boot.iso and use that to boot the 
installer.

If you don't have a CD writer, not to worry. You can boot the installer 
from your hard disk:

# mount -r -o loop /root/boot.iso /mnt/iso
# cp /mnt/iso/isolinux/vmlinuz /boot/vmlinuz.fc4
# cp /mnt/iso/isolinux/initrd.img /boot/initrd.img.fc4

Then copy one of your existing kernel entries in /etc/grub.conf (a set 
of lines starting "title", "root", "kernel", "initrd").

Change the title line:
title Fedora Core 4 Installer

Leave the "root" line as it is.

Change the kernel line to:
	kernel /vmlinuz.fc4 ramdisk_size=8192
If your existing kernel line referred to a kernel with a directory name 
starting with /boot, change it to:
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz.fc4 ramdisk_size=8192

Change the initrd line to:
	initrd /initrd.img.fc4
If your existing initrd line referred to an initrd with a directory name 
starting with /boot, change it to:
	initrd /boot/initrd.img.fc4

You should now be able to boot the FC4 installer from your hard disk by 
selecting "Fedora Core 4 Installer" from the grub menu.

I think in FC3 that the installer would not load the USB modules (and 
hence be able to see a USB drive) unless booted in "expert" mode. I 
don't know if this is still the case in FC4. If it is, append " expert" 
to the end of the kernel line in grub.

> Also, I am wondering what are the benefits to my exercise?  I think my 
> FC2 systems do just fine.  Why go to FC4?  (Actually, I want to do this 
> because I consider this to be fun!)

FC2 is end-of-lined. No more updates, including security updates (though 
some may be available from Fedora Legacy for a while). If the machine is 
a desktop, FC4 is much better IMHO.

Paul.