On Friday 03 October 2003 13:33, Jef Spaleta wrote: > griffisb wrote: > > I'm considering installing Fedora on a new laptop and wanted to know > > what the upgrade process is. I am not familiar with Red Hat, so > > familiarity with Fedora is nill. > > Right now the only thing available are TEST releases of Fedora Core. > It's very important to recognize that running TEST/BETA releases comes > with inherent risks. Once you install a test/beta release the > expectation that it will upgrade cleanly to the next official release is > unfounded. The expectation that a test2->test3 upgrade will run smoothly > is also unfounded. You have to think of the goals involved with the test > release process. The point of the test release process is to make it so > that you can upgrade from previous official releases to newer official > releases. If you upgrade from official->test or test->test or > test->official, then you should be expecting breakage...becuase the > engineering goals for the test releases are focused on making > official->official upgrades smooth. > > > I do have some experience with Mandrake, SuSE and Debian,though. > > > If I install Severn (Test 2?), how would I upgrade to Severn (Test 3?) > > when it comes out? > Better question...is upgrading from test2 to test3 WORTH testing? > The point of the test releases is to do testing....the upgrade path that > NEEDS testing is from rhl9,8,7.x->Fedora Core 1. Test3 will potential > have packaging fixes that make it impossible to cleanly upgrade from > test2 to test3. If you upgrade from test2 to test3...will the packagers > care much for your bugreports on the problems? My understanding that > making sure test2->test3 upgrades work correctly is a low priority in > the infinite list of things that should be working better. > > > Would I need to download the ISOs and burn them to CD again? Or is > > there a Debian-like apt-get update, apt-get upgrade? > > There are very clever ways to attempt to upgrade from test2->test3. And > they all fall in the "works for me" category sometimes. But if there is > a problem, you very well might not get much love from the bugzilla > trackers on the issues you have, becuase its outside the expected > upgrade path. > > > When General Availability comes out in November, would I be burning > > another set of CD's? > > general rule....there is no expected clean upgrade path from beta/test > releases. It can be done, it will most likely not be done as cleanly as > an official release->official release upgrade path. This is one of the > risks beta testers have to except as part of the process. The goal of > beta testing..is to not make beta testing easy...but to make official > release upgrading easy. Burn development to to ensure that test releases > will upgrade clean can very much get in the way of the technical > measures that need to happen to make sure official releases upgrade > well. Not all solutions are win-win, works for all situations, > solutions. If something has to be done to make an official->official > upgrade work well, at the cost of test->official upgrade...so be > it...the test/beta installers are told that test/beta releases are prone > to breakage...upgrading from them is no different. > > > Would it be expecting too much to install Fedora, burn CD's as it goes > > GA, then ship and talk her through the upgrade process? Since Fedora > > > is based on RH 9.0 (if I read right), could I assume RH9.0 User Guides > > would be appropriate? > > this is TEST release...if she isn't competent enough to be an active > participant in the testing process...submitting bugreports and giving > feedback to developers about those bugs...she should NOT be trying to > use the fedora core 0.94 test release on a day to day basis. There is an > inherent expectation in the test/beta release that something could > serious break, and the people running the test/beta release better > understand that, and be prepared to give feedback on the bugs they find. > Wait for the official release of Fedora Core. > -jef Thank you. While the information isn't exactly what I wanted to hear - it is completely understandable. Think I'll wait for General Availability on this one. It will save me a lot of headaches, and I certainly don't want my sister's first experience with Linux to be on a test version. See you guys (and gals) in November! Bruce
