What's the worst thing about operating systems and progress?
Clean-install/Re-install/Upgrade
And, fedora has both: allot of OS and allot of progress
While reading over the usability discussion on the devel list, I noticed someone's comment on the frantic release cycle - which is great, I want the latest and greatest. But, the clean install every 6mths or less has got the be the biggest pita for fedora.
This is of course true with all OSs, only fedora clicks over three times the speed of anything else. Three times the pita. And we all want a clean-install cf. upgrade because we all want to make use of the latest and greatest fedora has to offer (never mind the questions of whether an upgrade ever actually works - on any OS).
Many years ago I installed all the interactions between MacOS 7.1 and 8.1, and then some. The greatest thing I ever found was this: http://www.marcmoini.com/C-IAssistant.html
It's called Clean-Install Assistant. A wizard that steps you through the process of saving your custom config (by comparing the system against a database of non-custom system) installing a clean system and then re-installing the custom config.
Of course fedora is somewhat more sophisticated than MacOS 8.1, but the principle's the same. Basically, what I have to do at least every 6mths is: - List my packages - List all changes to /home/me/ - List all changes to /etc/ - back up /home/me/ and /etc/ - Clean install - List my new packages and yum the diff - Go through my lists of /home/me/ and /etc/ and move-reconfig from the backups - Then muck around for the next month or so fine tuning all the stuff that I don't know about and never will that naturally gets customised through use - By which time it's time to go through the whole process again! (not quite:)
So, what a blessing it would be to have a wizard that by a few clicks of a mouse stepped you effortlessly and comprehensively through that pita I've just listed above.
I know, my Mac heritage is showing:) But, the principle is a valid one and what a relief it would be.
M.
Morgan Read wrote:
What's the worst thing about operating systems and progress?
Clean-install/Re-install/Upgrade
And, fedora has both: allot of OS and allot of progress
While reading over the usability discussion on the devel list, I noticed someone's comment on the frantic release cycle - which is great, I want the latest and greatest. But, the clean install every 6mths or less has got the be the biggest pita for fedora.
This is of course true with all OSs, only fedora clicks over three times the speed of anything else. Three times the pita. And we all want a clean-install cf. upgrade because we all want to make use of the latest and greatest fedora has to offer (never mind the questions of whether an upgrade ever actually works
- on any OS).
Many years ago I installed all the interactions between MacOS 7.1 and 8.1, and then some. The greatest thing I ever found was this: http://www.marcmoini.com/C-IAssistant.html
It's called Clean-Install Assistant. A wizard that steps you through the process of saving your custom config (by comparing the system against a database of non-custom system) installing a clean system and then re-installing the custom config.
Of course fedora is somewhat more sophisticated than MacOS 8.1, but the principle's the same. Basically, what I have to do at least every 6mths is:
- List my packages
- List all changes to /home/me/
- List all changes to /etc/
- back up /home/me/ and /etc/
- Clean install
- List my new packages and yum the diff
- Go through my lists of /home/me/ and /etc/ and move-reconfig from the backups
- Then muck around for the next month or so fine tuning all the stuff that I
don't know about and never will that naturally gets customised through use
- By which time it's time to go through the whole process again! (not quite:)
So, what a blessing it would be to have a wizard that by a few clicks of a mouse stepped you effortlessly and comprehensively through that pita I've just listed above.
I know, my Mac heritage is showing:) But, the principle is a valid one and what a relief it would be.
M.
You might be interested in http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AnacondaWorkItems#upgrade. I would love to have a upgrade assistant like what you suggest too.
Rahul
Rahul wrote:
Morgan Read wrote:
What's the worst thing about operating systems and progress?
Clean-install/Re-install/Upgrade
...
You might be interested in http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AnacondaWorkItems#upgrade. I would love to have a upgrade assistant like what you suggest too.
YES!
But, I would extend that to /home because, while in a technical sense perhaps /home is considered "non-default non-system information customisation" clearly from a users point of view (usability?...) there is a default - what get set up as the default when a new user is created. AND this is, from the novice desktop users point of view, where most of the progress is apparent from one iteration of fedora to the next.
M. (Looks like since I left MacOS8.1 behind Apple have incorporated Clean-Install Assistant in their OS)
On 8/31/06, Morgan Read mstuff@read.org.nz wrote:
Of course fedora is somewhat more sophisticated than MacOS 8.1, but the principle's the same. Basically, what I have to do at least every 6mths is:
- List my packages
easily done.. and in fact a nightly list of packages is generated by a cronscript /var/log/rpmpkgs by the associated cronjob.
- List all changes to /home/me/
changes in /home/ could not be tracked since pretty much everything down in /home/ is non-default and its not even regarded as system information. You would need to backup all of /home/, no need to try to track changes inside /home when all of /home is considered a customization.
- List all changes to /etc/
Isn't this accomplished by parsing all of rpm -V and looking for files in /etc/ ?
- back up /home/me/ and /etc/
backup to where and how? backing up a user's space while outside of an enterprise network is still a huge problem with no reasonably accessible in-distro solution. Go back into the fedora archives and read up on previous discussions concerning the pybackpack Summer of Code project and the discussion on what an accessible in-distro backup facility needs to taste line.
We need to solve the problem of providing a generally useful and accessible backup facility that can handle removable media, local harddrive, and network backup targets whenever a backup is requested before we attempt to automate backups strictly for fresh-install preparations. The issue of backups is much larger than pre-fresh-reinstall, and if you are only backing up /home to prep for a fresh install of a new Fedora release then I hope Fedora starts doing monthly releases to encourage people to backup their personal data atleast monthly.
- Clean install
- List my new packages and yum the diff
- Go through my lists of /home/me/ and /etc/ and move-reconfig from the backups
Easily said... not easily done if there is system configuration syntax changes which requires hand editting. Didn't we just see this sort of thing happen in fc5 with the internal changes in apache's modules?
- Then muck around for the next month or so fine tuning all the stuff that I
don't know about and never will that naturally gets customised through use
- By which time it's time to go through the whole process again! (not quite:)
So, what a blessing it would be to have a wizard that by a few clicks of a mouse stepped you effortlessly and comprehensively through that pita I've just listed above.
rpmpkg log already exists rpm -V can tell you what configs have been customized rpm -qf can be used to see if files in /etc/ are unknown to rpm and thus may need to be backed up.
writing a simple script to parse these isn't a big deal.... in fact this is the sort of thing perl is only good for.
The big gaping hole in the set of technology needed for your wizard is a comprehensive and accessible backup technology that is easily configured and can handle whatever media a home system has access to for backing up hundreds of gigs of personal data. While I didn't have a chance to reiterate this as my #1 wishlist item for fc6, I take that opportunity now. The biggest missing piece of desktop user oriented technology in Fedora Core is in my opinion a robust and accessible backup/restore tool.
-jef
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What about this scenario:
* Start installation process of the new release. * Upon detection of your existing copy of Fedora, prompt the user to migrate user information, accounts, etc. ° If clean installation is selected offer at least two options: - Format current partition layout. - Keep personal files and account/system layout (fstab) information. ° Proceed according to options with the disks, in case of unallocated partitions (as per fstab) and usable partitions found, prompt the user if he/she would like to start disk druid to allocate/format/etc those partitions or stick to the migrated fstab layout and doing the allocation later. * Select packages, mirrors, etc * Boot your system, and make first boot inherit system accounts information. In oder words, if there is something "nonstandard" on /etc/shadow and /etc/group, and they correlate to the users in /home, skip the user creation step.
Basically instead of full reformat, what would be done is something like a 'for in' loop to remove all system files, except for those needed to perform the migration, i.e /home (in case of a monolithic /, and if there's a /home entry as a mountpoint in fstab, ignore this), /etc/shadow, /etc/group, /etc/passwd. Perform the installation, and if users in /etc/passwd do match the declaration of their home directories, make First Boot skip user creation.
It would also be helpful to be able to asign root's password as part of the First Boot service, especially helpful if you sell systems with Fedora pre-installed, you can kick-start the systems for installation, and the end user is able to set their own root password as part of the first boot configuration routine.
Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 8/31/06, Morgan Read mstuff@read.org.nz wrote:
Of course fedora is somewhat more sophisticated than MacOS 8.1, but the principle's the same. Basically, what I have to do at least every 6mths is:
- List my packages
easily done.. and in fact a nightly list of packages is generated by a cronscript /var/log/rpmpkgs by the associated cronjob.
That's interesting, but not very useful for diff'ing before and after and running yum against - for that something like: $ rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}\n" | sort -n is necessary.
And, then you'd want to add in some information about which packages have been obsoleted and replaced... And then, some information about the implications for the various configs involved...
- List all changes to /home/me/
changes in /home/ could not be tracked since pretty much everything down in /home/ is non-default and its not even regarded as system information. You would need to backup all of /home/, no need to try to track changes inside /home when all of /home is considered a customization.
See my response to Rahul.
But, to be honest, I can't keep a track of what's custom and what's default in the various .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .evolution .nautilus etc...; you get the picture - it's a right royal pita
...
- back up /home/me/ and /etc/
backup to where and how? backing up a user's space while outside of an enterprise network is still a huge problem with no reasonably
I usually just move them to /home/mex/ /home/etc/ (guess it's pretty much what's suggested by Rahul at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AnacondaWorkItems#upgrade, plus /home/) ...
We need to solve the problem of providing a generally useful and accessible backup facility that can handle removable media, local
I've been using Mondo - but, that's a different context. I don't understand why it's not included somewhere.
...
Easily said... not easily done if there is system configuration syntax changes which requires hand editting. Didn't we just see this sort of thing happen in fc5 with the internal changes in apache's modules?
I was envisioning something that could diff the two files and offer options about what to do about those diff's, with some contextual info thrown in for good measure
...
rpmpkg log already exists rpm -V can tell you what configs have been customized rpm -qf can be used to see if files in /etc/ are unknown to rpm and thus may need to be backed up.
writing a simple script to parse these isn't a big deal.... in fact this is the sort of thing perl is only good for.
The big gaping hole in the set of technology needed for your wizard is a comprehensive and accessible backup technology that is easily
I think Rhoul has covered that in his link ref'd above?
Regards, M.
desktop@lists.stg.fedoraproject.org
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Gain Paolo Mureddu -
Jef Spaleta -
Morgan Read -
Rahul Sundaram