[lug] KRUD 8.0 (12/1/02) Install Issues

[Michael Deck]

At 10:17 PM 1/13/2003, Ed Hill wrote:
>On Mon, 2003-01-13 at 16:14, Michael Deck wrote:
>> I'm having a couple of problems upgrading to KRUD 8.0. The original installation was 7.2. 
>> 
>> I'd been having CD-ROM problems so I copied the contents of the 3 disks onto a local server from which I could do an HTTP install, created a boot floppy, and started. Selected "upgrade" and everything seemed to go fine. 
>> 
>> When I started a KDE session, though, all the taskbar icons except the red hat were little gears with nothing behind them. 
>> 
>> I tried erasing my home/.kde and that didn't fix the problem. That trick had fixed the problem on another machine. 
>> 
>> Then I did a bad thing and erased /etc/kde. Whoosh. Next restart, the only thing that comes up is a terminal window (not a console). Ick. 
>> 
>> So I thought I would smbmount the drive containing the KRUD copy and rpm -F kde*. After an hour of no apparent progress (but rpm and similar tasks in top), I killed it. 
>> 
>> Now I've fixed my CD-ROM problems so I figure I'll boot the 1st KRUD disc and upgrade. After selecting "Update boot loader configuration" it says "Finding packages to upgrade" and hangs here for 20+ minutes with no apparent progress. 
>> 
>> What to do? On this machine I'm cool with re-installing everything. This is my laptop and is pretty much a shadow system for traveling. 
>> 
>> The thing that worries me is, this upgrade was a test to see if there would be problems before I upgrade my main server. Experience says that upgrading the server can result in days of intermittent performance as I figure out what went wrong. So I'm really trying to understand what's up here so I can figure out what to plan for my "real" upgrade. 
>> 
>> Any thoughts? 
>
>
>Hi Mike,
>
>Theres at *least* two sides to the "update the packages" vs. "re-install
>the OS from scratch" debate.
>
>I happen to be a fan of the latter.  On both my laptop and the dozen
>desktops that I administer, I keep a separate /home partition.  The idea
>is that I can:
>
>  1) copy the /etc directory contents to /home or a CDR
>  2) wipe all the non-\home partitions and re-install the OS 
>       from scratch
>  3) use the config info from the old copy of /etc to re-build 
>       the necessary parts
>
>Please note that I'm not trying to "sell" or otherwise proselytize this
>approach as it does have its down-sides:
>
>  - time consuming
>  - easy to make mistakes -- esp. for the inexperienced
>  - easy to forget both the necessary config changes or how to 
>      make them
>
>but on the other hand it does come with the following benefits:
>
>  - cruft removal (!)
>  - imposition of a certain discipline -- it effectively forces me 
>      to keep some notes for the re-installs so I tend to make
>      fewer mistakes
>  - satisfies by inner clean-/control-freak tendencies
>  - avoids some of the problems that used to be more common with 
>      Linux distro upgrades
>
>Good luck with your current upgrade!
>
>Ed

Ed, 
  How often do you do this? What I've been hoping to do is get myself up to where I can just drop in the monthly shipment of KRUD and have it upgrade what it needs to, without my intervention. Unfortunately, what happens to me is, I wait too long and then I end up with a 'massive' upgrade like this one. But a New Year's resolution this year is to keep my system up to date. 
  I usually end up doing a reinstall anyhow, since it seems like whenever I try something less it bombs out and I need to reinstall. Like now. 
  The "keep good notes" bit is certainly sage advice. I find that a reinstall usually takes me hours or days to recover from: between Qmail and Mailman there's usually some job that isn't starting, or some permission that's wrong. 
  Like I said, I probably will end up reinstalling on my laptop but I'm hoping someone can tell me what I might have done wrong to get it so wedged. 

-Mike



Michael Deck
Cleanroom Software Engineering, Inc.