Upgrade Red Hat 8.0 -> 9 via apt-get

[Void Main]

I was successful in upgrading 4 more of my machines from RH8 to RH9 tonight (including this server). This time I used apt-get and did everything remotely and it worked just great. I have my own "os" repositories for RH8 and RH9 and I use freshrpms.net for "updates freshrpms". Before you can do an upgrade you need to make sure your Red Hat 8.0 installation is up to date or it will not work. The basic steps I used for the upgrades were:

1) Make sure /etc/apt/sources.list is pointing to the RH8 apt repositories for "os", "updates", and "freshrpms" then do an "apt-get update" and an "apt-get dist-upgrade".

2) Change /etc/apt/sources.list to point to RH9 repositories for "os", "updates", and "freshrpms" (make sure the RH8 repos are commented out). Then you should be able to just do an "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade" and it should upgrade you to RH9.

The kernel will not update automatically so if you want to upgrade it (and you will) you will have to download it from the RH9 installation and install it using the "rpm -ivh" command (don't use "-Uvh"). Set /etc/grub.conf to use the new kernel (it will add a menu entry for the new kernel but it will net set it to be the default). Now reboot your system and you should be up on RH9. After verifying the new kernel works you can remove the old one (don't forget to include the version number of the old kernel in the "rpm -e" command).

That's pretty much it.

[update]
Instead of downloading and installing the new kernel manually you can do it with apt-get, I didn't realize it until now. Just type:

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# apt-get install kernel


which should give you a list similar to this:

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Package kernel is a virtual package provided by:
  kernel-smp#2.4.20-9 2.4.20-9
  kernel-smp#2.4.20-13.9 2.4.20-13.9
  kernel-bigmem#2.4.20-13.9 2.4.20-13.9
  kernel-BOOT#2.4.20-9 2.4.20-9
  kernel-BOOT#2.4.20-13.9 2.4.20-13.9
  kernel#2.4.20-9 2.4.20-9
  kernel#2.4.20-9 2.4.20-9
  kernel#2.4.20-9 2.4.20-9
  kernel#2.4.20-13.9 2.4.20-13.9
  kernel#2.4.20-13.9 2.4.20-13.9
  kernel#2.4.20-13.9 2.4.20-13.9
  kernel-smp#2.4.20-8 2.4.20-8
  kernel-bigmem#2.4.20-8 2.4.20-8
  kernel-BOOT#2.4.20-8 2.4.20-8
  kernel#2.4.20-8 2.4.20-8
  kernel#2.4.20-8 2.4.20-8
  kernel#2.4.20-8 2.4.20-8
You should explicitly select one to install.


You might then want to do this:

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apt-get install kernel#2.4.20-13.9


Which will install the kernel and leave the original kernel as the default giving you a chance to check it out prior to making it the default. So boot the new kernel and if it works then make it the default by editing the /boot/grub/grub.conf (or /etc/grub.conf which is a symlink to the former). Change the "default=" to whichever one you want to be the default ("default=0" means the first kernel in the list will be the default).
[/update]

[topsoill]

Nice.

[X11]

Can you tell me how many terabytes of stuff I will be downloading to do this.

I might do it over dialup in the precess of few decades.

[Void Main]

It all depends on how much stuff you have installed. If you only have a bare minimal server set up then it might only need to grab a couple hundred megabyte. :) That's why I set up my own RH9 repository so it will pull most everything from my local network.

[X11]

Need to get 815MB of archives.

[agent007]

If only apt-get could install stuff from the RH9 Cd's then it would be great for pl like me who are not on a network.....I was thinking of recreating the RedHat install in the apt forrmat..Oh well, thats a lot of work..

It all depends on how much stuff you have installed. If you only have a bare minimal server set up then it might only need to grab a couple hundred megabyte. That's why I set up my own RH9 repository so it will pull most everything from my local network.

[Void Main]

If only apt-get could install stuff from the RH9 Cd's then it would be great for pl like me who are not on a network.....I was thinking of recreating the RedHat install in the apt forrmat..Oh well, thats a lot of work..

Well if you have the Red Hat CDs and are going to use CDs then you might as well just stick it in the drive and do the "Upgrade" option as it would do pretty much the same thing as an "apt-get dist-upgrade". However, you *can* turn the Red Hat CDs into apt-get repo CDs. It tells you how here:

http://freshrpms.net/apt/

I don't see it as all that useful for doing an upgrade from RH8->RH9 but it would be great for installing/removing software contained on the RH9 CDs after the upgrade. And I believe the CDs can still be used as normal RH9 discs.

[Linux Frank]

Just a note : Thanks Void I wasn't convinced it would work, but it went like a dream.

Incidentally I now have two Kernel options in my Grub list, without having to apt get the kernel. In fact when it began the RPM function it first perfomed a -ivh on a kernel, so maybe they updated that at freshrpms.

I have to say that two commands fetched and installed 515 "programs" without any addidtional work by me. I just logged out afterwards and logged right back in. Then I restarted and again no problems. I can log in as normal, with any of the users on my system, and I still have all my data.

It was quite something to sit there and watch it fetching and then running through and executing. (I had reading material while it did all this).

My advice to whoever trys this, switch off screensavers, and don't use your computer for anything else. That way your computer will have more resources to deal with processing the data. Which on a system as old as mine is a major concern (1:45 download and a while to install (I think 30-40 mins)).

[akv6p]

1) Make sure /etc/apt/sources.list is pointing to the RH8 apt repositories for "os", "updates", and "freshrpms" then do an "apt-get update" and an "apt-get dist-upgrade".

2) Change /etc/apt/sources.list to point to RH9 repositories for "os", "updates", and "freshrpms" (make sure the RH8 repos are commented out). Then you should be able to just do an "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade" and it should upgrade you to RH9.

I'm a newbie when it comes to apt so a little more explanation would be appreciated. I currently have this for my sources.list

rpm http://download.fedora.us/fedora redhat/8.0/i386 os updates stable
rpm-src http://download.fedora.us/fedora redhat/8.0/i386 os updates stable

However it's mentioned that I should make sure that freshrpms should point to Redhat 8 repositories. But it doesn't seem like that's set at all in my sources.list. So if someone could point me to some documentation (or even better take pity on my poor soul) and explain what the "os, updates, stable" mean in my sources.list it would be really helpful.

Thanks

[Void Main]

All references on this site to apt-get on Red Hat and Fedora are using the apt application and repositories at www.freshrpms.net. I have to say that I have never used the version over at the fedora site, or the fedora site's repositories. I have discovered that it is generally not a good idea to mix several large scale repositories. In fact limit it to 1 if at all possible. For instance, I would never point my sources.list file to both freshrpms and fedora at the same time because they may contain RPMS that will clash. Pick one that has most of the software you want and stick with it. I usually have no trouble adding 3rd party repositories that only have a very small selection of RPMS that are not already part of the main repositories.

So, sticking with the above thoughts if you want to use fedora's repository (as it appears you are currently using) and wanted to use it to upgrade your system I would first have it configured like you do now and then do:

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# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade


which will get your RH8 system up to date as far as RH8 can go. Now, I have never upgraded a machine straight from RH8 to Fedora Core 1 so I don't know what kind of problems you could run in to if any (I would think it should work). If you wanted to go to RH9 first you would change your /etc/apt/sources.list file by commenting out your RH8 lines and adding these lines:

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rpm http://download.fedora.us/fedora redhat/9/i386 os updates stable
rpm-src http://download.fedora.us/fedora redhat/9/i386 os updates stable


(or just change the "8.0" to "9" in your two RH8 lines). Then do this:

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# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade


If all goes well you'll now have an up to date RH9 system. Keep in mind that I have never done this from the fedora.us repository so I can't say what sort of problems you might run in to. I wouldn't expect big problems but then problems that are minor to me could be big problems for someone else. If you have plenty of free disk space and a high speed connection you should be in business quickly. Did that help at all?

[DiRL]

Hello and thanks in advance for the help

First let me fill you in a little bit about me; I'm a n00b.

I have installed Redhat9 from cd. I installed apt-get and ran "apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade" using the freshrpms respository.

I'm interested in upgrading from redhat9 to fedora using apt-get, and I'm wondering if this is possible. In my /etc/apt/sources.list there is not a repository comment for fedora. I'm wondering if anyone has attempted to use apt-get to upgrade from RH9 > Fedora? Would anyone have any advice regarding this upgrade? Am I opening a can of worms that would be better addressed by downloading the images from Redhat and upgrading via CD or is apt-get a workable solution in my case?

[Void Main]

Yes, I upgraded most of my machines from RH9 to FC1 using apt. You can find references to it in this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=700

It's the same procedure that I have explained in this thread except of course you would change your sources.list to point to FC1 rather than RH9 where indicated. I set up my own repository for all of my upgrades but you don't have to. You can find the FC1 repository lines for your sources.list in my FC1 apt tip:

http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/redhat/fe ... _have.html

It wouldn't hurt to read through the entire Fedora thread that I linked to at the top of this post.

[DiRL]

Just wanted to post an update:

added the fedora repository, ran apt-get clean, apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade
everything worked perfectly except for sendmail and lilo, I manually unistalled sendmail and lilo via rpm -e. I then followed that with apt-get install sendmail which worked fine. I then installed grub

Thanks again for your help and I encourage anyone to go ahead with the upgrade, at least for evolution 1.4