Can't find existing Fedora on FC3>FC4 upgrade

[Jim Cornette]

Andy Schlei wrote:

> I am trying to upgrade FC3>FC4. I have booted from the boot.iso CD 
> (burned) and am installing from HTTP with the source loaded on another 
> machine on my local network.
>
> My problem is that the installer does not find any existing 
> implementation of Fedora, so goes into the new install path rather 
> than the upgrade path. I have successfully upgraded a FC3 machine 
> using this same approach (the test machine, which is now the source 
> for the HTTP install) and the same CD on a machine that is using 
> default LVM partitioning.
>
> I have faiirly standard partitioning using LVM.
>
> What does Fedora do to find an existing implementation?  How can I 
> make sure that it finds it?  Any way to avoid a full re-installation.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>

Sorry to answer again (or question)

I checked bugzilla for entries against FC4 and test versions before FC4 
was released. I have experienced the problem myself. Anyway, since you 
want to upgrade vs. doing a reinstallation, filing a bug report against 
anaconda. The saying that it isn't a bug unless someone reports it might 
be true here. I should have filed a bug report against it myself. Now 
that someone else has seen the problem, it seems more than just 
something happened at one point in the development phase.

I still have the disk that contains the LVM installation. It is in 
FC4test2 condition or whenever yum went down due to sql-lile or 
something. You have my curiousity up now.

Regarding other options, you could download and install the fedora 
release package from a mirror. This will install the repos and other 
information needed for the FC4 release. In /etc/yum.repos.d there will 
be files for the repos tagged on the end with rpmnew. These files are 
what your repos listings should be changed to. Rename your current .repo 
files to .repo.old - rename the fedora.repo.rpmnew files to not include 
the .rpmnew appending of name. Then you could try running yum update to 
get your system up to FC4. As far as I recall, only a few packages were 
needed after trying the installer later on my system. The below packages 
were upgraded after I did as mentioned above. Upgrade the fedora-release 
package and remove the .rpmnew apending from the repo files.

This is what packages you might be missing out on using the yum method.

Upgrading firefox-1.0.4-4.i386.
Upgrading cman-kernel-2.6.11.5-20050601.152643.FC4.2.i686.
Upgrading dlm-kernel-2.6.11.5-20050601.152643.FC4.2.i686.
Upgrading comps-4-0.20050606.i386.

I'll swap disks to see if the installation on the LVM fails to be 
recognized during the install attempt shortly.

When you file a bug report, you might be able to pose your question as 
to what the installer uses to detect previous installations.

Jim

-- 
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that
would also stop you from doing clever things.
		-- Doug Gwyn