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RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade

For those of you still stuck in the old archeic version of Fedora Core 4 or older, perhaps because you have lot's of files stored and documents and do not wish to reinstall the entire OS: it may be time to consider an upgrade.  Thankfully there is a way to do this from Fedora Core 1 to the latest Fedora available.  The only drawback it that it may take a while.  You would need to upgrade through each version to the latest Fedora which can take a very long time.

Here is a point where you should ask yourself if it's more economical for you to just reinstall the system from Fedora 9 images or upgrade.  Installing from the latest Fedora images is way faster if this is an option for you.  If not, here's how to do the upgrade.

We will be upgrading from Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 in this article.  There are a number of preparation steps you will need to take but the general procedure is as follows:

1) Check if the packages and applications you need most on your current system support the latest releases of Fedora Core 2 packages.  For example some web servers running Ensim, Plesk and cPanel (WHM) will run only on certain releases.

2) Run yum update yum.  If you do not have yum installed, you would need to get it for Fedora Core 1.  One possible source is 'http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/1/i386/yum-2.0.5-1.noarch.rpm'

3) Run yum clean all followed by yum update to update the current release.  Try to remove dependencies if you cannot easily satisfy them.  On subsequent upgrades, this will make your life easier.

4) Check what kernels you currently have using either rpm -aq|grep kernel or rpm -aq kernel.  You should remove all except the most stable kernel you are using which likely may be your current one.  Use rpm -e <package> for this.

5) Verify your '/etc/yum.conf' file.  Add or set the following

debuglevel=10

errorlevel=10

6) Verify the repositories available to you and check them:

$ ll /etc/yum.repos.d
.
fedora.repo
.
fedora-updates.repo
.
$

Check them:

$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo|grep mirror

One of the links provided for me was:

mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-released-f$releasever&arch=$basearch

which translates to:

http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-released-f1&arch=i386

Which, for FC1, resulted in:

# repo = updates-released-f1 arch = i386 error: invalid repo or arch

If you see a list of mirrors, you can skip the rest of the information in this step and go to step 7).  Meaning you'll have to go shopping for a valid link.  Here is one I found for this purpose:

For UPDATE of current system to latest FC1: http://fedoralegacy.ggu-squad.org/fedora/1/i386/RPMS.stable/
For UPGRADE of current system to FC2:  http://fedoralegacy.ggu-squad.org/fedora/2/i386/RPMS.stable/

So your link in 'fedora-updates.repo' would become something like this:

http://fedoralegacy.ggu-squad.org/fedora/$releasever/$releasever/RPMS.stable/

NOTES The http://www.fedoralegacy.org site has now closed (at the time of this writing) however they do provide mirrors you can use: http://www.fedoralegacy.org/download/fedoralegacy-mirrors.php You will need to check the list for the ones matching your release.  Naturally, because the older releases loose their support, you'll have to be carefull which mirrors you use.

7) Decide whether to exit XWindows, KDE, Gnome etc GUI's.  It is generally recommended to run the least possible when upgrading however there are advantages of staying in the GUI.  One in particular is that you will be able to stay connected to resources such as a GUI browser and multiple console windows, in case your installation doesn't work out as planned and you need to do some more research.  This is important.

8 ) Install fedora-relese either using http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/2/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/fedora-release-2-4.i386.rpm or use another mirror from the fedora.redhat.com site.  You can also use the mirrors from fedoralegacy.org if your distribution is too old.

9) Run

nice -n 19 yum -y upgrade 2>&1|tee ./Fedora-Core-2-upgrade.MONTH.DAY.YEAR.HOUR.MINUTE.txt'

or equivalent to start the  upgrade.

10) At this point you will likely be presented with dependency errors and problems.  You can handle these in any ways including removing packages you currently have installed 'yum' is trying to update causing the dependency issue OR try to satisfy them.  Typically removing them resolves more issues then trying to satisfy them.  In addition, old packages sometimes are no longer supported by the vendor, discontinued or obsolete which means you will only run into the issue again later when upgrading to newer versions.  Note down the packages you remove.  If you need some, you can potentially install them later.

 

8 Responses to “RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade”

  1. […] RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade .  If you have not already upgraded to F9 please visit RedHat Fedora: Fedora 8 to Fedora 9 upgrade. page first before going up to Fedora 10. […]

  2. […] RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade .  If you have not already upgraded to F8 please visit  RedHat Fedora: Fedora 7 to Fedora 8 upgrade. page first before going up to FC9. […]

  3. […] 7 to Fedora 8 upgrade follows the general procedure outlined on the first Fedora Core upgrade page: RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade .  If you have not already upgraded to F7 please visit  RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 6 to […]

  4. […] 6 to Fedora 7 upgrade follows the general procedure outlined on the first Fedora Core upgrade page: RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade .  If you have not already upgraded to FC6 please visit  RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 5 to […]

  5. […] Fedora Core 6 upgrade follows the general procedure outlined on the first Fedora Core upgrade page: RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade .  If you have not already upgraded to FC5 please visit  RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 4 to […]

  6. […] the Fedora Core 4 to Fedora Core 5 upgrade is nearly identical to the first upgrade outlined in: RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade .  If you have not already upgraded to FC4 please visit RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 3 to Fedora […]

  7. […] Core 4 upgrade. The procedure for this upgrade follows the same steps outlined in: RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade with the exception of the below step.  If you have not already upgraded to FC3 please visit […]

  8. […] RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 Upgrade RedHat Fedora: Fedora Core 3 to Fedora Core 4 upgrade. […]

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