New to Fedora

[ian douglas]

>>currently use Gentoo for my workstation and have been wanting to try out 
>>Fedora.
>>1. Once Fedora is installed, and a new version comes out (Say "Fedora 
>>4"), will updating my system using up2date or yum install the current 
>>packages for the new version on my system; thereby updating the system 
>>with the same new software as the new release ("Fedora 4")? I like to 
>>keep my systems around for a while and don't like to reload the OS very 
>>often.

Not like 'emerge' or 'portage', sadly. I was *seriously* spoiled with 
Gentoo in that regard. Ultimately, though, until Gentoo's installation 
becomes a MUCH faster process - perhaps to the point of a stage-1 
install to at least get your system to a bootable state in a 'short' 
amount of time and then let you reboot and complete the rest of it 
later, I need to stick with a release like Fedora. I dual-boot my laptop 
and since I use it for work, I simply can't afford to spend 3-4 days 
compiling everything to get it to a state where I boot it the first time.


> Some people prefer to be more protective, and will actually backup their
> /home directory and perform a virgin install of the new version

That would include me, but as you've mentioned above, you prefer not to 
go that route.

>>2. Does the RPM package manager still suffer issues with dependencies as 
>>it used to? Example... Trying to install "Package 1" reveals Dependant 
>>packages needing to be installed, reveling yet more packages that need 
>>to be installed to satisfy the last Dependant package; wash, rinse, and 
>>repeat. Will up2date and/or yum take care of these dependencys for you now?

As Rob mentioned in his reply (very thorough, I might add):

yum -y update
... very friendly for updating packages - it resolves everything you 
need and with the '-y' switch won't prompt you at every step saying "Can 
I install package 'abc'?"

If you use 'chkconfig yum on' at a prompt, it'll run 'yum' on a nightly 
basis, upgrading things in the background for you. Your mileage may 
vary, but I've had pretty good luck with this. With Gentoo, unless I 
were subscribed to various mailing lists, I don't recall ever being 
notified that a newer package was available so I could 'emerge' it to 
keep my system current.

-id