Getting Rawhide

Andrew Farris lordmorgul at gmail.com
Thu Jan 24 15:05:35 UTC 2008


Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX N2469R wrote:
> Could someone post an exact cookbook for installing rawhide
> on an x86_64 machine?
> 
> I tried diskboot with several URLs but it always failed not being able
> to access one or more files.
> 
> I tried loading FC8 and, setting the repository to development,
> and then upgrading but this results in many conflicts with fc8
> versions as well as missing dependencies.
> 
> What is the correct procedure, exactly?

Basically, three options at the moment:
1) network install from boot.iso
2) network install from rescue image
3) update from an F8 install

Option 3 is as you said is going to cause some headaches, it usually does until 
around the beta freeze (when features stop changing as rapidly and more effort 
goes into release preparation).  It *should work* now, but you need to skip the 
broken dependencies and remove packages causing problems, etc. (not a start it 
updating and leave situation)

Alot of people do a partial update when trying this, choosing a group of 
packages like glibc, rpm, yum, python, cpio.  Others leave those for last. 
Several people recently have had problems doing yum first to get to rawhide, you 
should probably not let yum update until you have the majority of the rest done 
until that problem is fixed.

The yum update path does need testing and feedback to the packages that are 
broken, but if you don't have time for the try/fail/try runs of yum then just do 
a network install.

Option 1-2: same basic thing, different iso image
For option 1 get boot.iso:
http://mirror.lib.ucdavis.edu/fedora/linux/development/x86_64/os/images/

For option 2 get the rescue iso:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/rel-eng/trees/

Option 2 just has the stage2.img on the iso already (and defaults to rescue 
environment shell when booting from that cd), so the stage2.img will not have to 
be downloaded as your install starts.  You shouldn't use the rescue iso if 
you're sharing partitions on the machine with another distro due to a bug 
(extents for ext4 get set on the partitions).  I did an x86_64 install fine from 
that image.

Burn the iso.  Boot the machine.  Pick the installation mirror location (the 
'os' directory where the 'Packages' directory is found).
http://mirror.lib.ucdavis.edu/fedora/linux/development/x86_64/os/

Run through anaconda and start the install.  Yes, it can get frozen due to 
missing/corrupt/failed packages sometimes.  You should try not to do network 
installs near the time period that the mirrors will be updating.  For the US 
mirrors that should be somewhere around 2-6AM EST (when koji does the new repo 
build).  If the repo changes while you're installing you are SOL and will have 
to start the install again.

To avoid that issue, you can download a local mirror of rawhide and install from 
that, a fairly simple process of rsync'ing off another mirror into a local 
webserver accessible directory, or NFS mountable directory.  You should pull 
down everything inside the os directory to your mirror.  If you have repeated 
issues with installing from another mirror, or you have a network connection 
thats a bit flaky, then mirror it yourself to save the time from failed installs.

-- 
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul at gmail.com> <ajfarris at gmail.com>
  gpg 0xC99B1DF3 fingerprint CDEC 6FAD BA27 40DF 707E A2E0 F0F6 E622 C99B 1DF3
No one now has, and no one will ever again get, the big picture. - Daniel Geer
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