Jim Cornette <fc-cornette@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
David G. Miller wrote:
or people trying to do an unsupported upgrade (it's unsupported for a
reason).
And the reason being? Upgrading from release to release may be
problematic to a degree. It is possible though. I have been going from
release to release even back when up2date and the rhn update site was
the place to get updates. Simply replacing the fedora-release package
back then would allow one to upgrade via an unsupported format.
This is Linux! People have options for upgrading. It is not noise, it is
passing on information of problems encountered during the upgrades and
what one does to resolve the problems.
The reason is really quite simple: configuration files. Any Linux
distro has to deal with a bunch of them; each with their own syntax,
defaults, quirks, etc. Any upgrade has to cleanly bring forward any and
all user edits and changes in order to be successful. This includes
changes made through the program itself as well as horrible people like
me who fire up vi at the drop of a hat (possibly red) and hack away at
the configuration to get it the way we like it. It's one of the great
things about Linux but also one of the things that means that upgrades
will be difficult unless somebody comes up with a grand unified
configuration file syntax.
If you don't do too much editing and customizing, these things will
frequently "just work". Just don't count on it. I was in charge of QA
for a Linux based network monitoring package at my previous job. I know
how much trouble we had just getting this to work consistently for our
one app. Having seen what it takes to QA an upgrade, I fully support
both Red Hat and Fedora in their decision to not support updates. They
may work; they may not. YMMV.
The other problems are obsoletion and unsupported packages. Rhetorical
question: what should an upgrade do if a user program is now obsolete
and the replacement is one of several different programs? Unsupported
packages are even worse for a distro like Fedora or RHEL. I run
xmms-mp3. What should Fedora or Red Hat do when I upgrade? Hint: their
lawyer may disagree with your solution.
Unfortunately, these complaints create a lot of noise that
someone new to the list might mistake for systemic problems.
Maybe there are problems one reads into the postings one may read on the
mailing lists. This is not a forum where one worries too much if someone
puts off upgrading a release because of fears of possible problems. We
are not a propaganda list where only glorious, smooth success stories
are presented.
One glorious, smooth success: I just installed FC6 x86_64 on my HP
laptop (zv6015). It "just worked (tm)". I still have to fiddle with
bcm43xx to get the wireless NIC working but EVERYTHING else worked.
This is in comparison to installing FC4 a year and a half ago and going
through bloody h*** to get it working.
Cheers,
Dave
--
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce
