[mythtv-users] upgrading an apt-get based FC system, big troubles, need help

[Phill Edwards]

> Since FC2, I followed Jarod's HOWTO to set up my mytboxes
> (and: thanks Jarod, without your guide I wouldn't have
> been able to get a working mythbox)
>
> I installed apt-get, added the extra repositories needed,
> etc. etc.  I liked it and even began to use apt-get
> on non-Myth boxes, both at home and at work, for regular
> update and maintenaince of severals PCs.
>
> Problem is, when I want to update from a FC release to
> the next one (upgrade, not reinstall everythinng from scratch).
>
> Every time I attemped it, I ended with a seriously broken machine,
> with inconsistent package versions mixed together, where
> even the apt "kickstart" package from Axel's site wouldn't work.
>
> I believe this is because the "update" procedure on the CD
> just ignores the packages coming from the extra repositories,
> so for example after upgrading from FC3 to FC4,
> there were still lots and lots of FC3 rpms installed in the system
> (including base packages), which however had more recent versions
> of .so libraries than the ones on the CD, resulting in an
> unoperable system where even rpm istelf couldn't be executed
> due to conflicting versions of executables and dynamic libraries.
> And you know, if rpm doesn't work, it's hard to fix the system.
> This happened on all the machines I tried to upgrade.

This is a copy of a thread from the ATrpms mailing list. Hope it
helps. It's about using modifying the sources.list files and using apt
to upgrade rather than anaconda off the CD.

<snip>
On Sun, May 07, 2006 at 09:24:39AM +1000, Phill Edwards wrote:
> I'm getting system lockups on my MythTV box all the time and I'm going
> to upgrade from FC3 to FC4 to see if it makes a difference. I can't
> find anything in log files that points to the problem and I've
> installed a whopping 120mm system fan which keeps the system cooler
> but I still get lockups.
>
> I'm not going to do it by a fresh install as I don't want to risk
> losing all my MythTV stuff that I've spent months getting working. I
> want to do the upgrade by changing the sources.list.d files:
>
> rpm http://dl.atrpms.net fc3-i386/redhat release
> rpm http://dl.atrpms.net fc3-i386/redhat updates
>                TO
> rpm http://dl.atrpms.net fc4-i386/redhat release
> rpm http://dl.atrpms.net fc4-i386/redhat updates
>
> rpm http://dl.atrpms.net fc3-i386/atrpms stable
>                TO
> rpm http://dl.atrpms.net fc4-i386/atrpms stable
>
>
> I was then going to run apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.
>
> Will this do it? I read somewhere that Jarod said you have to upgrade
> apt to the FC4 version for this to work. Is that correct? Do I do this
> before I run apt-get dist-upgrade or after? I don't really understand
> this bit because how can you install the FC4 version of apt on a FC3
> system?
>
> Any guidance would be much appreciated.

I'd cut the upgrade in two pieces:

apt-get upgrade

which will upgrade only pacxkages w/o removing others and intorducing
new ones, and then

apt-get dist-upgrade

for the rest.

For the fastest upgrade, just ask anaconda to do it for you. It will
blow away some depedencies especially kmdls, but you can reconfigure
the depsolvers to point to ATrpms and upgrade the rest.

Note: "smart fix" can be very handy for finding (and fixing) broken
dependencies.
</snip>