Re: [PLUG] Gutsy

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

> Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:57:44 -0400
> From: "Mark M. Hoffman" <mhoffman@lightlink.com>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Gutsy
>
> FYI: upgrade w/o CDROM is not too hard Fedora/RHEL/Centos/etc:
>
> 1) Grab the pxeboot images, "initrd.img" and "vmlinuz".  E.g. F7:
> <mirror>/fedora/linux/releases/7/Fedora/i386/os/images/pxeboot/

<snip>

> 4) Reboot, and pick the new entry in GRUB.  Viola, no CDROM or floppy 
needed.
>
> Any machine w/ GRUB can be upgraded/overwritten to any distro w/ pxe 
images with that method.  IIRC ubuntu has them also, but it's been a while.

Interesting, I didn't know that, though in hindsight I see it.  I will 
remember that if I need to do a CentOS upgrade like that, thanks.

For a new or clean install that makes a lot of sense.  But doesn't RH 
still strongly recommend "clean" reinstalls for major upgrades?  They 
did last time I checked, but I think that was circa RHEL3 or so.

One of the reasons I moved from RH to Debian was that fact that a major 
upgrades are "in band" so to speak.  No reboot, no clean reinstall, just 
tweak /etc/apt/sources.list and "aptitude update && aptitude 
dist-upgrade" for Debian or (*strongly* recommended) "update-manager 
--check-dist-upgrades" for Ubuntu.  Reboot once at the end and that's 
it.  In theory, everything is migrated and/or you are asked about 
changes and told about deprecated packages.  In practice, that's all 
worked for me.

I'm past the time when installing OS' is "fun," I just want them to 
work, so I like the idea that I install the OS once.  I never need to 
reinstall because I have to or it gets crufty (Windows) or because the 
vendor strongly recommends it for major upgrades (RH).  Unless I am 
wrong and that has changed for RH or others?

OK, stepping down from my soap box and shutting up now... :-)
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|        jp{at}jpsdomain{dot}org
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
Microsoft has single-handedly nullified Moore's Law.
Innate design flaws of Windows make a personal firewall, anti-virus
and anti-malware software mandatory. The resulting software arms race
has effectively flattened Moore's Law on hardware running Windows.
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