Proposal: Rolling Release

[Les Mikesell]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Michael Cronenworth wrote:
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Proposal: Rolling Release
>> From: Eric Springer <erikina at gmail.com>
>> To: fedora-devel-list at redhat.com
>> Date: 11/10/2008 07:42 AM
>>
>>>
>>> Thoughts? Flames? Ideas?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Actually, what Fedora needs already exists: preupgrade
>>
>> It just needs to be turned into a mandatory update tool with 
>> PackageKit.  Joe Enduser needs to be able to click "Update Me!" and go 
>> from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10 with a single click.
> 
> Already implemented. PackageKit hooks up to Preupgrade and you would get 
> a desktop blurb letting you know that when a subsequent release of 
> Fedora is available.

The real missing piece is 'undo' when you find out that a change in the 
new version breaks something that you need.  Does anyone know if that 
actually works on systems using conary (i.e. can you back up a major 
revision)?

If that's not feasible, how about something else, useful in its own 
right: a migration tool that would let you move an existing system to 
different hardware or in/out of VMware/virtualbox, etc., preferably with 
the ability to keep everything but the system partitions intact and 
shared.  Then when it is time to upgrade, you could migrate into a 
virtualbox image or spare machine, upgrade that, then after testing your 
apps and usage, migrate it to the host hardware.

Or if that's too complicated, how about an option to pre-allocate a 
spare system partition during the initial install for the next version 
and have that upgrade process give you a dual-boot system so you have a 
way back.  Then the next upgrade would rotate back to the first 
partition, and so on.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com