apt upgrade from rh9 to fc2

[Calum]

i have just successfully apt-getted my way from red hat 9 to fedora core 2!

i had to apt-get remove XFree86 of course (and also libgnome i think), and i redirected the output of apt to a file so i could check through all the other stuff that was uninstalled (all the things that depend on X were uninstalled) later.

Now, i then used apt (in the sources.list.d/ files i had uncommented all the rh9, fc1 and fc2 lines) to dist-upgrade everything. then i used apt to install some xorg packages (because fc2 uses xorg and not xfree86 i think) including xorg-x11 and xorg-x11-xfm now after that, i looked through the list of files that were uninstalled when i uninstalled X and used apt to reinstall most of them, along with their dependencies. now after that, i have commented all the lines in the sources.list.d files except the fc2 lines and am now using apt to try to install everything i know i will want. at the moment i am still stuck with firefox 0.8 for some reason, also i can't seem to install mozilla using apt as it wants XFree86 so it's off to rpm.pbone.net for me i think, also gdm has a distint lack of desktop environments available for graphical login users, so i will have to look up how to sort that out again...

i won't be writing a howto about this, but i thought i should at least mention here that i did it and that it was pretty easy, since i didn't find anything about going from red hat to fedora using apt, when i searched google.

wish me luck!

[worker201]

It would be very cool if this was not an April Fool's Day joke.

[Calum]

it isn't! i thought they only applied before midday! (and i think it is no longer before midday even in the USA)

now, the next thing i am having to do, is to uninstall apt, and also to uninstall atrpms-package-config and then install dag's apt for fedora core 2 from his site. this appears to be clearing up some dependency issues, including the one where i could not install synaptic on the new system.

now i have synaptic installed (via my new dag apt) i can use it hopefully to sort out dependency issues, it seems i have to uninstall a few packages where the version numbers are too recent, so that apt will install the right versions to resolve dependencies, to install mozilla and others, and it helps to see these (for me anyway) in something like synaptic for this sort of thing, although i do prefer a CLI for normal apt operations.

[Calum]

hey, something else really odd here, can anybody explain this?

i installed a new "clean" apt from dag's site there, and then did apt-get upgrade again, 11 new packages, fair enough

but now once they are installed, i run synaptic and select "gdm" to be installed (it is installed already by the way) and it selects *140 packages* to be upgraded! some, i have already, and some i don't (they must be dependencies) so now i am installing the 140 packages via synaptic, even though i should be up to date according to apt... why is this? the repositories are the same by the looks of things, that the two programs are using...

hang on, i just stopped the 140 files downloading, and tried to install one of the rpms by hand that it had downloaded, and rpm tells me this package is installed already, so it looks like i cannot trust synaptic, but why not?

edit: now i am using synaptic to do a "smart upgrade", and it is installing 22 packages, and uninstalling 8 (one of these is lynx, another is quanta (both of which i will have to install again, via apt afterwards!) and three are old XFree86 ones that i must have left on here)

[Calum]

ok, looks like closing synaptic and starting it again, after a quick apt-get dist-upgrade has done the trick, both programs think i am fully up to date with my new fedora core 2 installation, and i have installed a firefox rpm from pbone.net too, so it looks like i am the happy owner of a fedora core 2 system!

not bad, because i installed this from a red hat 8.0 CD (a no name one, with the red hat logos replaced (due to that copyright issue, remember?)) a couple of months ago, and upgraded to rh9 from there using apt, so i am hoping to keep apt-getting my way up to keep it current.

i'd recommend it to anyone!

[worker201]

I've noticed that Dag's rpms have slightly different names than FreshRPMs or Redhat. Like gaim-1.0.1.4-fc3.rpm as opposed to gaim-1.0.1.4-fed3.rpm or something silly like that. My computer complained greatly the first time I added Dag to my sources - I had the correct version numbers, but not the coolest version names, I guess. Updating everything to Dag nomenclature seemed to solve the problem - things have been smooth ever since, with no complications or competition between sources.

[Void Main]

Very cool. I was able to upgrade from release to release using apt up until FC3 where it became a little more painful. I don't think I have ever skipped a release let alone two or three releases like you have. Good to know!

[X11]

I did my other computer from FC1 to FC3 with no problems, I just did an apt-get dist-upgrade after changing it from using the FC1 repository to the FC3 repository.

I wasnt using dag back then, but I use it on my laptop and it has no problems.

[Calum]

ok, i have an odd problem after doing this now, and void main, incidentally, if you think it appropriate, please plit to another thread, i started it in here though as i think it might be related.

anyway, now i boot up the PC today and it tries to start X as part of its usual booting into runlevel 5 and fails. it reverts to a normal runlevel 3 style login prompt, rather than hanging anywhere. i don't see any error messages, and if i then run startx then x starts no bother at all and goes into the environment i have specified in my ~/.xinitrc (which is windowmaker) with no problems.

how do i begin to troubleshoot this please? once i know this, perhaps i can snout around on google till i find how to fix it!

thanks in advance!

[Void Main]

I would start by looking at the /var/log/Xorg.*.log files but it sounds like X is starting if you can get Windowmaker up. Sounds like the problem is with gdm.

[Calum]

ok, thanks, perhaps i will try kdm instead then, and go from there...

[Tux]

As I remmeber you do well by reinstalling GDM.

[Calum]

ok, have reinstalled gdm but situation is the same.

have overwritten /etc/gdm/gdm.conf with /etc/gdm/factory-gdm.conf and then run gdmsetup to specify my preferences, no change.

gdm runs fine on its own, when run as root from command line, and as i said, startx works fine too. gdm will log you in no bother, but doesn't remember your last login session, an doesn't check what the default is for your system either by the looks of things, well, anyway, it logged me in using twm as my windowmanager, but then again, that might be the factory default i suppose.

have had a look in /var for gdm or X related logs, and have not seen anything that alarms me, but considering i a) don't know which files to look in really and b) don't know what to look for in those files, this is not surprising.

i have also now manually added a grub entry for the new 2.6 kernel (was using the 2.4.18 one from RH9 until now) but have not yet rebooted to see if that will work fine, there's no initrd file for this kernel though.

now, any ideas how i can reconcile gdm and X? what am i looking for to start with?

[Calum]

ok, i think i am giving up, and reinstalling (will try mepis now i think! ) since startkde is not happy either, it's just not coming together, maaan...