Fedora Core 6 ROCKS ! Salute to the developers !

[David G. Miller]

Jim Cornette <fc-cornette at insight.rr.com> wrote:

>
>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.
>
>  
>
I tend to work from both ends.  System stuff in /etc gets the new 
installation configuration.  After the install is done I try to figure 
out what needs to be changed and "bring forward" whatever I customized.  
This means I tend to maintain a stable system while I try to figure out 
what else needs to be changed. 

User stuff gets restored and then fixed if its broken.  So, on the 
laptop I mentioned, I edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables, /etc/fstab, etc. to 
bring them back to where I want while the various user rc and 
configuration files just get dropped into place.  If something breaks, I 
back out the change and go from fresh.  I still have the original config 
file as reference.

BTW, speaking of CDs... it appears that a default install only requires 
the first three CDs.  I didn't even bother to burn CDs 4 through 6 for 
the x86_64 install.  I had the ISOs downloaded in case I needed them but 
didn't.  For everything beyond a default install, I just pulled stuff 
with yum.

>>> 
>>> 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.
>
Works well for user apps but I lived through the evolution of ipfwadm -> 
ipchains -> iptables.  Need to be careful with system stuff.  It would 
be nice to see core functionality supported for upgrades even if every 
oddball app isn't.  One of the arguments against supporting upgrades is, 
"if it ain't broke, don't fix it."  That is, once a release supports a 
platform, why change.  As with my laptop example, there are good reasons 
to upgrade from an OS release that only marginally supports a hardware 
platform to one that fully supports it.  Let's hope somebody at 
Fedora/RH listens.

Cheers,
Dave

-- 
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce