F-9 to F-10 preupgrade is rather mean

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
> David Timms wrote:
> 
>>> I noticed that the preupgrade install carefully removed
>>> all F-9 boot material -
>>> not only vmlinuz and initrd, but also the /lib/modules/ files.

Yeah, I noticed that too.  Lucky for me, preupgrade from F9 to F10 
worked and I don't need that stuff anymore.

>> Unless something was changed recently, the idea is that pre-upgrade
>> simply retrieves the minimal rpms needed to upgrade a specific system,
>> then adds an additional grub boot item for upgrade.

It looks to me that preupgrade downloaded *every* RPM it needed to 
install, created the necessary repo metadata for the downloaded RPMs, 
then rebooted into it version of anaconda to do the actual install using 
a kickstart file it created, which is a good thing since it was unable 
to create a working X11 session during this reboot for me.  When it 
attempted to switch to the graphical installer, it started an X11 
session, but my screen remained blank because it was unable to figure 
out that the monitor can only support 1024x768i, not 1024x768 (the 
monitor has no DDC information, its that old).  However, the install 
continued.  I could watch the system logs and kinda tell that 
*something* was happening.  I went to bed at 2AM (2 hours after it 
started), and returned to a working (yes, X11 too, at 800x600) system 
the next morning.  The logs show it took 5 hours to complete the 
installation on that very old K6-2 system.  This is one instance where 
I'm happy that preupgrade used the kickstart method.

>> When you reboot and choose upgrade, essentially a normal anaconda based
>> upgrade occurs, with the same questions you'd normally get, and the same
>> result.

preupgrade is not a "normal" anaconda session.

> I was not asked any questions when I re-booted after running preupgrade.
> The system immediately launched into an enormous updating saga.
> 
> Normally, if I do a clean install I am asked if I want to format /boot
> or leave it as it is. I always choose the latter.
> This leaves old kernels in place, though it does remove reference to them
> from grub.conf, IIRC.

preupgrade is an "update" not a fresh install.  Its tries not to modify 
your current settings, that would include partitions and old configurations.

> However, it leaves the old grub.conf as grub.conf.rpmsave ,
> and it is easy to merge the two.

No need if the installation succeeds.  I'm not sure what it does if it 
encounters problems and does not succeed.

>> /lib/modules comes from the kernel, so I would expect to only have
>> modules for the most recent installed kernel in there after the upgrade.
>>
>> I have noticed during install/upgrade that kernel install occurs 80%
>> into the process; did your install finish normally ?
> 
> Yes, everything seemed to end normally.
> But you seem to be saying that what did occur
> is what should have occurred.
> I'm saying that it doesn't occur with a clean install;
> the old system (vmlinuz, initrd and /lib/modules) is left in place.

Only the preupgrade person can tell you what *should* have happened. 
S/he's the person who implemented the design.

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)