Biting the bullet?

[Michael Hennebry]

On Mon, 11 May 2015, Rolf Turner wrote:

> I am currently running Fedora 17.  Which is of course antediluvian. But

The last version I succesfully installed was F17.

> everything I have seen on this list with respect to upgrading terrifies 
> me.  Disasters seem to lurk everywhere and I haven't the skills to cope 
> with disasters.  Nor do I have access to any support in respect of Fedora.

I've never used FedUP, so do not know how reliable it is.

> So, if you will bear with me, I'd like to start off with a preliminary 
> question:
>
> The seeming necessity for upgrading arises from a pressing need to 
> upgrade "R" to version 3.2.0.  When I try to build this version I get a 
> load of error messages (basically coming from gcc I think) like unto:
>
>> connections.o: In function `gzcon_write':
>> /home/rolf/Desktop/Rinst/R-3.2.0/src/main/connections.c:5469: undefined 
> reference to `deflate'

Absent an upgrade, you will need to chase
down the undefined references and define them.
The source might have suggestions.

zip uses deflate.  Its source might be useful.

> Given that the answer to my preliminary question is "No", can anyone be 
> so kind as to provide me with a *recipe* for upgrading, expressed in 
> simple-minded terms that I can understand?  Something of the form:

FedUp appears to be an answer.
I would need to trust it a lot to use it on an irreplaceable installation.

Copy /home and /etc to external storage.
>From a live disk, make the partitions that you will need later.
Put empty filesystems on them.
If /home is not already a separate partition, make it so:
     From a live disk:
         mount F17's / read-only as /F17-slash
         mount a partition with an empty filesystem as /home-new
         cd /F17-slash/home ; cp -a  * .[^.]* ..?*  /home-new
         To make F17 use it, would require editing /F17-slash/etc/fstab
         /F17-slash would have to be remounted writeable
Boot the install disk.
Tell anaconda you want a custom install.
Do not tell it to format any partitions.
/ and /var should be separate, previously empty partitions.
/home should be your /home partition.

If you are lucky, all your ~/.configuration-whatever
files will still be useable by their respective applications.

If you run into trouble with global configuarations,
the contents of the old /etc might be some help.

-- 
Michael   hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu
"SCSI is NOT magic. There are *fundamental technical
reasons* why it is necessary to sacrifice a young
goat to your SCSI chain now and then."   --   John Woods