Fedora Core 6 ROCKS ! Salute to the developers !

Jim Cornette fc-cornette at insight.rr.com
Mon Oct 30 01:02:47 UTC 2006


David G. Miller wrote:
> Jim Cornette <fc-cornette at insight.rr.com> wrote:
> 
>> David G. Miller wrote:
>>  
>>
>>>> or people trying to do an unsupported upgrade (it's unsupported for a
>>>>  reason).
>>>   
>>
>> And the reason being? 

>>
> The reason is really quite simple: configuration files.  Any Linux 
> distro has to deal with a bunch of them; each with their own syntax, 
> defaults, quirks, etc.  Any upgrade has to cleanly bring forward any and 
> all user edits and changes in order to be successful.  This includes 
> changes made through the program itself as well as horrible people like 
> me who fire up vi at the drop of a hat (possibly red) and hack away at 
> the configuration to get it the way we like it.  It's one of the great 
> things about Linux but also one of the things that means that upgrades 
> will be difficult unless somebody comes up with a grand unified 
> configuration file syntax.

I don't edit a lot of configuration files except for grub, xorg 
currently by hand. I do use the system tools for most other operations 
that change these files. I guess gconf is the great unifier. :-)

> 
> If you don't do too much editing and customizing, these things will 
> frequently "just work".  Just don't count on it.  I was in charge of QA 
> for a Linux based network monitoring package at my previous job.  I know 
> how much trouble we had just getting this to work consistently for our 
> one app.  Having seen what it takes to QA an upgrade, I fully support 
> both Red Hat and Fedora in their decision to not support updates.  They 
> may work; they may not.  YMMV.

Early on, I was limited in the use of the CDROM burner I had when 
running Linux. The upgrades never added the parameter to load ide 
emulation out. Whenever I did my first clean install later on, the CDROM 
burned fine. I do see quirks with upgrading and missing out on 
technology changes without a fresh and modern configuration. Upgrading 
from release version to release version may be supported, but you still 
suffer some being left behind. I have no arguments there.
Now, considering the complexity with modern Linux distributions and the 
large size of the distributions, installing fresh each time would be a 
considerable task.
Since you edit your configuration files to aa great degree, do you just 
replace the files from the new install or go through each to note format 
changes? Upgrades leave rpmnew or rpmsave files, so short of losing out 
on technological changes, what would make one be better than the other. 
Merging config files from rpmsave or rpmnew files should serve the same 
function.

> 
> The other problems are obsoletion and unsupported packages.  Rhetorical 
> question: what should an upgrade do if a user program is now obsolete 
> and the replacement is one of several different programs?  Unsupported 
> packages are even worse for a distro like Fedora or RHEL.  I run 
> xmms-mp3.  What should Fedora or Red Hat do when I upgrade?  Hint: their 
> lawyer may disagree with your solution.

Leave it broken, the application of updates after the install is 
finished should allow the program to function again as intended.

> 
>>>> Unfortunately, these complaints create a lot of noise that someone 
>>>> new to the list might mistake for systemic problems.
>>>   
>>
>> Maybe there are problems one reads into the postings one may read on 
>> the mailing lists. This is not a forum where one worries too much if 
>> someone puts off upgrading a release because of fears of possible 
>> problems. We are not a propaganda list where only glorious, smooth 
>> success stories are presented.
>>  
>>
> One glorious, smooth success: I just installed FC6 x86_64 on my HP 
> laptop (zv6015).  It "just worked (tm)".  I still have to fiddle with 
> bcm43xx to get the wireless NIC working but EVERYTHING else worked.  
> This is in comparison to installing FC4 a year and a half ago and going 
> through bloody h*** to get it working.

The advancements since FC4 are great enough for me to notice. FC6 in any 
manner you choose should be fine. I guess unsupported manners will not 
get any bugzilla responses other than unsupported.

Linux ... Freedom of choice, supported or not supported.
Jim

> 
> Cheers,
> Dave
> 


-- 
Jones' Second Law:
	The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone
	to blame it on.




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