New subject: Leaping from F18 -> F21

2 Mar 2015


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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Max Pyziur pyz@brama.com
To: Community support for Fedora users users@lists.fedoraproject.org
Cc:
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 08:43:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Leaping from F18 -> F21
On Fri, 27 Feb 2015, jd1008 wrote:
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On 02/27/2015 03:15 PM, Max Pyziur wrote:
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Greetings,
I decided to begin making the leap from F18 to F21. My reluctance in
 upgrading with each new release was due to all of the problems that
were
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reported with upgrades, and not wanting to go through a dependency
upgrade
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ordeal.
Now with F18 firmly EOL'd and enough packages showing their age and
 demanding upgrades, I've begun making the switch.
I have three machines that run Fedora: two laptops, one of which is
an
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i686 and the other a dual-core, and a desktop.
I've started w/ the i686, the least used, and essentially a backup.
The
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strategy is to simply leave the /home partition alone, and to do a
fresh
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install, reformating the other partitions. (I used the Fedora 21
 Workstation Live i686 disc). Having a list of those RPMs that were
 installed under F18, I'll work my way back to something that I was
using
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before.
I did that, but when the machine responded and rebooted, and then I
tried
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to login through the GUI to a gnome desktop, the result was unusable.
No problem: <ctrl+alt>+F2 and I have a character-based screen, and I
can
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log in.
From there, I did a
 yum groupinstall "Xfce Desktop"
and then rebooted, selected Xfce as my desktop, login, and I have the
 beginnings of a functioning gui-based system.
However, my Gnome problem remains: there is no provision in F21-i686
for a
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yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop" so that I have a functioning Gnome
or
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Gnome-Classic desktop (there is one for "MATE Desktop," btw).
Would anyone have advice on how to install all of the remaining
necessary
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pieces for a functioning F21 i686 Gnome Desktop?
Much thanks,
Max Pyziur
 pyz@brama.com
Personally, I had absolutely no problems leaping from f18 to f20 using
fedup.
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It worked flawlessly.
I'll consider this as a possible method for upgrading the other two
machines.
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A fresh install is a bit extreme, but on my attempts of moving from
F17-> F18 using fedup I recall a machine became unusable. Monitoring
subsequent releases (F19, F20, F21) and users using fedup as the upgrade
mechanism, there still seemed to be reports of unreliability, as in YMMV.
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I also have an additional concern, since I'm somewhat reliant on
PostgreSQL and PostGIS, which require elevated vigilance across releases,
since the newer versions need to have data backuped and specially restored.
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That is not to sat that some f18 packages did not have updates in f21.
That is why I still have some f18 packages, which still work without
any problems.
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My experience so far is that I still can't use the Gnome Desktop
(Classic, Wayland, or otherwise) in F21 on my i686 Laptop (I can use Xfce
and MATE); I keep trying to find the correct  yum group to install; I also
keep adding packages, but I still haven't found the correct libraries
and/or packages so a typical Gnome Desktop appears correctly.
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So, I would be grateful for any continuing guidance in this regard.
Thanks.
Max Pyziur
pyz@brama.com
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From this post:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=302035
there may be a hidden yum group called "GNOME".
Try running 'yum grouplist hidden', and see what groups return? GNOME might
be listed there.
Ben Blankley
President - WCT, Board Member - WSC