[olug] Redhat 9 to Fedora?

[Ken]

Ken wrote:
> I'm currently using running RH9 for my home desktop/workstation and have 
> been thinking about "upgrading" to Fedora Core 1.  
[snip]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.  It was just the shove I needed.  I
went ahead and gave it a shot using yum to do the upgrade.  I hadn't
tried yum before now but after having used it for the upgrade I'd have
to say it gives apt a serious run for the money.

The process was surprisingly smooth and so far I haven't found anything 
really "broken".  I originally started the upgrade using the default 
yum.conf that came with the yum rpm and it was going incredibly slow but 
then added some mirrors and restarted and the installation sped right 
along.  For those who are thinking about doing the same, I've listed a 
mini how-to of what worked for me below.

The only issue I seem to have from the whole thing is the mysterious 
disappearance of all the menus and applications in my gui "start" menu. 
  I suspect this is a self-created problem due to the fact that I had 
customized the start menu under RH9..  Time to start hunting through 
GNOME configs..
-Ken MacFerrin


HOW-TO:
1. Download/install yum and fedora-release rpms:
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/yum-2.0.4-2.noarch.rpm
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-1-3.i386.rpm


2. Customize your /etc/yum.conf file to add mirrors (see attached). 
Copy this file to /etc/yum.conf.bak then edit the /etc/yum.conf
file to remove all occurrences of “$releasever” in /etc/yum.conf with 
“1” (no quotes).
Example:
baseurl=http://fedora.redhat.com/releases/fedora-core-$releasever
http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/$releasever/$basearch/os
becomes:
baseurl=http://fedora.redhat.com/releases/fedora-core-1
http://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/1/$basearch/os


3. Download and import the following keys if you want to use gpg
checking on packages (recommended).  If you comment out gpgcheck=1 in
yum.conf you can skip this step.
cd /usr/share/rhn/
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/RPM-GPG-KEY
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/RPM-GPG-KEY-beta
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-rawhide
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-test
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/RPM-GPG-KEY-rawhide
http://www.fedora.us/FEDORA-GPG-KEY
rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY*
rpm --import FEDORA-GPG-KEY


4. Remove a few potential problem RH9 rpms and "custom" rpms from odd
sources to prevent conflicts:
rpm –ev firstboot
rpm –ev redhat-config-securitylevel
rpm –ev lokkit
rpm -ev apcusd-usb-rh9


5. Disable screensaver (just in case) and run "yum upgrade"
wait. wait.. wait...

After downloading the headers it will eventually either stop and give
you errors about some rpm dependencies or ask you for a [y/N] to upgrade
and install packages..

If you get the errors then "rpm -ev" the offending rpms and run "yum
upgrade" again until you no longer have errors.

Once you get to the [y/N] then just enter y and hang on..  My 1.8Ghz,
512MB RAM system on a Cox cablemodem connection took about 2 hours to do
the downloads, upgrades and package tests from this point.


6. Fedora is installed..  Reboot into your new kernel and you're done 
unless you're using the NVIDIA driver from the NVidia website like me..


7. if you've previously installed the "nvidia" driver (doesn't apply to 
the "nv" or "mesa"), don't reboot yet..  Make sure you have a copy of 
the nvidia installer from www.nvidia.com/object/linux.html

I personally am still using the 1.0-4496 driver from the archives.. I've
heard questionable feedback on the 5328.

Once saved then edit your /etc/inittab and change
id:5:initdefault:
to
id:3:initdefault:

Now reboot.


8. Assuming you've rebooted successfully and are running your new, shiny
Fedora Core kernel you should now be in text mode.  Login as root and
then cd to the directory you downloaded the nvidia installer package.

You'll need to do the following to prevent getting errors about using
the same compiler as was used to build the kernel:
export CC=gcc32

then run the installer as usual and follow the directions from there:
./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4496-pkg2.run


9.  Assuming you received no errors above, then use vi or emacs and
change the "3" back to a "5" in your /etc/inittab.


10. Reboot and bask the glory of your new Fedora Core distro..


Some good reference pages.  Most the information above was harvested 
from these:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~vschmidt/notes/redhat2fedora/
http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Upgrading_Red_Hat_Linux_with_yum.html
http://www.fedora.us/wiki/FedoraHOWTO

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