F13 -> f14 via preupgrade: my workaround

[Colin Brace]

Hi all,

Earlier today I tried upgrading my F13 system to F14 with preupgrade, but
ran into the dreaded "Unable to read package metadata... cannot retrieve
repository metadata..." error, which I've repeatedly encountered with
preupdgrade previously.

I tried moving /var/cache/yum to a different drive with more space but that
didn't work. Finally, I moved the entire /var directory from a separate
partition to the root partition, changing fstab accordingly, rebooting, and
then finally the upgrade proceeded as it should. 

Don't know what the deal is with preupgrade, but in terms of paths and
partitions etc it is hardly bulletproof.

FWIW,
Colin

-----
  Colin Brace
  Amsterdam
  http://lim.nl
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[Joe Zeff]

On 11/03/2010 05:58 PM, Rick Stevens wrote:
>  There are several things that are a bit, well, stupid in those
> areas.
>  I can see not going to multiuser mode (run level>1), but to start up
>  before mounting the filesystems?  Sheesh! 
And yet, preupgrade is capable of dealing with a separate /boot so maybe 
it knows to mount it?  If so, you'd think it'd just mount everything 
Just In Case.

[Rick Stevens]

On 11/03/2010 02:13 PM, Colin Brace wrote:
>  Hi all,
>
>  Earlier today I tried upgrading my F13 system to F14 with preupgrade, but
>  ran into the dreaded "Unable to read package metadata... cannot retrieve
>  repository metadata..." error, which I've repeatedly encountered with
>  preupdgrade previously.
>
>  I tried moving /var/cache/yum to a different drive with more space but that
>  didn't work. Finally, I moved the entire /var directory from a separate
>  partition to the root partition, changing fstab accordingly, rebooting, and
>  then finally the upgrade proceeded as it should.
>
>  Don't know what the deal is with preupgrade, but in terms of paths and
>  partitions etc it is hardly bulletproof. 
I believe preupgrade starts before any of the other partitions are 
mounted.  Thus if /var is on a separate partition than / you may run
into issues.

I've been bitten by this with using multipathd as well, as it wants to
write to /var/lib, but /var isn't mounted when multipathd starts.

There are several things that are a bit, well, stupid in those areas.
I can see not going to multiuser mode (run level >1), but to start up
before mounting the filesystems?  Sheesh!
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