Just had a bad experience with preupgrade. Had a phenom II x64 machine that had Fedora 11 freshly installed with default settengs a few weeks before 12 came out. Finally decided to try the upgrade to see how it would work, but could have done a clean install if it didn't work.
Preupgraded started find downloading files, but eventually came up with a message that it needed more space on /boot. Removed all but latest kernel, and memtest and eventually needed to remove the splash graphic to get it to work, but fianllly got enough space. So the preupgrade to finish the process to reboot. Then when it rebooted, there was a message that it needed more space, but there was nothing on the /boot to be removed. I was able to boot back to the Fedora 11 kernel, and then tried a last resort option. Took the initrd in the upgrade directory, and first gunziped it, and then used lzma on it. The resuld was about 500M smaller size, and then was able to reboot. This then alllowed the preupgrade boot to work, and the system has now upgraded.
It would have been nicer to get a message to either no do a preupgrade, or to have a way to resize the systems. Would have tired partimage, but it doesn't resize lvm, so that would be another problem.
+----------------------------------------------------------+ Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor Guam Community College Computer Center mailto:mikes@kuentos.guam.net mailto:msetzerii@gmail.com http://www.guam.net/home/mikes Guam - Where America's Day Begins +----------------------------------------------------------+
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On Wed, 2009-12-30 at 23:43 +1000, Michael D. Setzer II wrote:
Just had a bad experience with preupgrade. Had a phenom II x64 machine that had Fedora 11 freshly installed with default settengs a few weeks before 12 came out. Finally decided to try the upgrade to see how it would work, but could have done a clean install if it didn't work.
Preupgraded started find downloading files, but eventually came up with a message that it needed more space on /boot. Removed all but latest kernel, and memtest and eventually needed to remove the splash graphic to get it to work, but fianllly got enough space. So the preupgrade to finish the process to reboot. Then when it rebooted, there was a message that it needed more space, but there was nothing on the /boot to be removed. I was able to boot back to the Fedora 11 kernel, and then tried a last resort option. Took the initrd in the upgrade directory, and first gunziped it, and then used lzma on it. The resuld was about 500M smaller size, and then was able to reboot. This then alllowed the preupgrade boot to work, and the system has now upgraded.
It would have been nicer to get a message to either no do a preupgrade, or to have a way to resize the systems. Would have tired partimage, but it doesn't resize lvm, so that would be another problem.
Michael,
It's too late now, but Michael Chronenworth posted a much simpler solution to preupgrade's /boot space problem. He moved install.img from /boot to a thumb drive. When anaconda doesn't find it in /boot, it asks for its location. Point anaconda to the thumb drive and the upgrade will proceed without a hitch.
If the partitioning default for fresh installs would increase /boot from 200MB to 300MB in future releases, this problem would gradually disappear.
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL
Robert G. (Doc) Savage wrote:
It's too late now, but Michael Chronenworth posted a much simpler solution to preupgrade's /boot space problem. He moved install.img from /boot to a thumb drive. When anaconda doesn't find it in /boot, it asks for its location. Point anaconda to the thumb drive and the upgrade will proceed without a hitch.
I assumed install.img had to be in /boot , for some reason. If it doesn't have to be there, it seems a crazy decision to try to install a file in a partition that manifestly won't hold it in many, if not most, cases.
On Wednesday 30 December 2009 13:43:20 Michael D. Setzer II wrote:
Just had a bad experience with preupgrade.
[snip]
Preupgraded started find downloading files, but eventually came up with a message that it needed more space on /boot.
[snip]
It would have been nicer to get a message to either no do a preupgrade, or to have a way to resize the systems. Would have tired partimage, but it doesn't resize lvm, so that would be another problem.
If you are using LVM, I would expect resizing partitions to be easy and painless, right? LVM was actually introduced precisely for this purpose, AFAIK.
Once preupgrade complained it needs more space for /boot, I would use LVM tools to expand /boot accordingly, then start again. That said, please note that I never upgrade Fedora (always reformat and do a clean install), and that I don't use LVM (always manually create a custom bare-bones partition layout to suit my needs). IOW, I may not be the proper person to give the above advice. ;-)
HTH, :-) Marko
On 30 Dec 2009 at 18:14, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
From: Marko Vojinovic vvmarko@gmail.com Send reply to: vmarko@ipb.ac.rs To: fedora-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Very BAD preupgrade experience. Date sent: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:14:07 +0000 Copies to: "Michael D. Setzer II" mikes@kuentos.guam.net
On Wednesday 30 December 2009 13:43:20 Michael D. Setzer II wrote:
Just had a bad experience with preupgrade.
[snip]
Preupgraded started find downloading files, but eventually came up with a message that it needed more space on /boot.
[snip]
It would have been nicer to get a message to either no do a preupgrade, or to have a way to resize the systems. Would have tired partimage, but it doesn't resize lvm, so that would be another problem.
If you are using LVM, I would expect resizing partitions to be easy and painless, right? LVM was actually introduced precisely for this purpose, AFAIK.
Problem is that the /boot is a separate regular partition. /dev/sda1 The root and swap partitions are LVM in the /dev/sda2.
The LVM options don't seem to help in this setup, it would require reducing the size of the LVM inside the physical partition, and then resizing the physical parititon, and then moving the physical partition. Might be possible, but I don't know all the commands.
Once preupgrade complained it needs more space for /boot, I would use LVM tools to expand /boot accordingly, then start again. That said, please note that I never upgrade Fedora (always reformat and do a clean install), and that I don't use LVM (always manually create a custom bare-bones partition layout to suit my needs). IOW, I may not be the proper person to give the above advice. ;-)
I've thought of not using LVM, since I don't see needing the on the fly options it allows for my setup, but it is the default setup. If they where regular paritions, using partedmagic or other program would make it easy to move the partitions.
Thanks for the info.
HTH, :-) Marko
+----------------------------------------------------------+ Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor Guam Community College Computer Center mailto:mikes@kuentos.guam.net mailto:msetzerii@gmail.com http://www.guam.net/home/mikes Guam - Where America's Day Begins +----------------------------------------------------------+
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu (Original) Number of Seti Units Returned: 19,471 Processing time: 32 years, 290 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes (Total Hours: 287,489)
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