[Mageia-dev] ANN: Upgrading from Mageia 2 via urpmi

Tue Dec 11 05:51:52 CET 2012

On Sunday, December 09, 2012 11:55:13 AM Colin Guthrie wrote:
+> 'Twas brillig, and Thierry Vignaud at 09/12/12 18:48 did gyre and gimble:
+> > On 9 December 2012 13:18, Colin Guthrie <mageia at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
+> >>>> So I've just pushed the package mageia-prepare-upgrade to mga2
+> >>>> core/updates_testing.
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> This package, when installed will add a new menu option to your
+> >>>> bootloader. Simply install this package, reboot, select the "Mageia 3
+> >>>> Upgrade Preparation" entry boot, wait while your FS is converted and
+> >>>> then perform a urpmi upgrade as you would normally.
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> I've not specifically tested the upgrade part, only the installation
+> >>>> and creation of the initrd and bootloader entries in grub. I've also
+> >>>> not done this on an mga2 machine yet but will do soon enough.
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> I just wanted to get this package "out there" for anyone wanting to
+> >>>> update their mga2 machines to mga3 a3 but not wanting to use the
+> >>>> installer.
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> At present there are a few limitations:
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> 1. It requires kernel 3.3.8-2.mga2 to be installed (any flavour should
+> >>>> work). A specific kernel version is not really 100% necessary but it
+> >>>> does mean I can add hard requires to the package. This is only
+> >>>> desirable to prevent the situation where users install this upgrade
+> >>>> package but do not run it and later remove the kernel used to
+> >>>> generate the initrd for the bootloader menu item, thus breaking it.
+> >>>> Any smarter ideas on how to manage this welcome.
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> 2. If you have /usr in a separate partition and have it mounted ro in
+> >>>> your fstab, you will have to manually change the fstab to rw for the
+> >>>> upgrade boot.
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> Happy testing. Let me know if it kills any kittens. Please keep a
+> >>>> backup etc. etc.
+> >>>> 
+> >>>> Col
+> >>> 
+> >>> Thanks Colin.
+> >>> The conversion works. But then the problem shows, we have no network.
+> >>> doing a urpmi --download-all --auto-update only downloads the fist 120+
+> >>> rpms (the ones needed before restart-urpmi
+> >>> 
+> >>> What is needed is to add some directories and then the network will
+> >>> start /var/run/netreport
+> >>> /var/lock/subsystem/network
+> >>> 
+> >>> I will check after the upgrade if they can be deleted
+> >> 
+> >> Hmm, yes, I guess after doing the upgrade the various /var/run and
+> >> /var/lock folders would be nuked. In mga3 they will be created by
+> >> tmpfiles but not with a simple reboot on mga2...
+> >> 
+> >> Hmm, I wonder how best to do this... perhaps we could ship updated
+> >> packages for each of the packages which absolutely *need* this to do the
+> >> download... or perhaps we could just ship some essential config tweaks
+> >> in the this mageia-prepare-upgrade file. It shouldn't do any harm to do
+> >> the latter and it's a bit easier on the QA folk.
+> > 
+> > Humm we could just package mageia-prepare-upgrade in mga3 and add
+> > it to urpmi priority list.
+> > Thus it would also work for people who never apply updates...
+> > My 2 cents
+> 
+> Not sure it would help. I mean users have to install it, reboot and then
+> install the rest...
+> 
+> Also how does the urpmi priority list work? Does that not require that
+> we install urpmi first? If so that likely won't work as there is a
+> chicken and egg scenario that prevents the rpm+urpmi from mga3 being
+> installed until the fs is updated.
+> 
+> 
+> Basically, a fully up-to-date mga2 (including rpm package and the
+> mageia-prepare-upgrade package) + reboot for preparation is needed for a
+> urpmi-based upgrades to work.
+> 
+> Col
+
+OK, I started all over again from a completed mga 2 with all updates.
+The requires are: Pizza and beer
+install mageia-prepare-upgrade
+change sources to cauldron
+reboot with mageia-prepare-ugrade
+
+eat pizza and drink beer, it takes a lot of time to pass all the time-outs
+
+(it will boot into a none graphic shell)
+login as root ans then startx
+ create /var/run and then start the network
+after network runs, remove the /var/run (otherwise filesystem will not install)
+
+then use urpmi --auto-update
+
+( got the message "/"  is mount read-only a few times and had to re-boot and go throught the 
+/var/run cycle as desribed above)
+
+This got me a full up-to-date cauldron
+
+
+-- 
+Best regards
+Thomas Spuhler
+