stand-alone home workstation; f30; dual-boot (with windows-7); Gnome (mainly).
I plan to upgrade to f31 in about a month. I looked thru the instructions for the upgrade. I know that beforehand, * I should do a back-up, and * that I should download the Fedora Workstation Live image to a USB stick.
F31 seems to have had more problems than the past several (6+ years) of releases. I don't have any data; that's just my impression based on this list. (I am curious what actual data would show.)
question 1: In addition to doing a back-up and making a live image USB stick, what preparations should I make to, within reason, minimize the probability of problems when I do the upgrade?
question 2: How do a make an f30 Fedora Workstation Live image on my USB stick? I found a place in the Fedora website to do f31, but I seriously want f30 for this.
Thank-you! Bill.
On Tue, 2020-03-10 at 13:58 -0600, home user wrote:
I plan to upgrade to f31 in about a month. I looked thru the instructions for the upgrade. I know that beforehand,
- I should do a back-up, and
- that I should download the Fedora Workstation Live image to a USB stick.
Sounds like you're talking about a new installation rather than an upgrade. The recommended way to upgrade is with dnf, which is what I've been doing for the past 8 years or so. I did a new install for F31, but only because I was switching from BIOS to UEFI.
F31 seems to have had more problems than the past several (6+ years) of releases. I don't have any data; that's just my impression based on this list. (I am curious what actual data would show.)
I think you're mistaken. I don't have any data, but I can remember some previous upgrades causing a lot more complaints, though I've never had any myself.
poc
(On Tue, 2020-03-10 at 6:56 PM, Patrick wrote)
...The recommended way to upgrade is with dnf, ...
That's how I do it, just as the on-line instructions say. I'm not doing a new installation.
I think you're mistaken. ...
I hope you're correct! What I originally said was merely a personal impression. Perhaps "problems" was not the best word to use.
Additional info., if it's relevant: My pre-upgrade back-up backs up user data only (with one exception), and only what the users (me) directly, deliberately create/modify. The exception: I back up only one hidden directory created by applications: .thunderbird. No systems files are backed up; I don't have the space and time.
One possible concern is intentional changes, improvements, that could cause problems or break things if I don't know about them in advance, and therefore don't properly prepare. Since my last upgrade (to f30, in October), I've noticed changes in my grub menu. The dracut entry disappeared. Another emergency entry disappeared. One of two windows-7 entries no longer works. That's one example of what I'm concerned about. The change in Thunderbird in the last upgrade caused me a lot of trouble. I wonder if there was something I could/should have done beforehand that would have avoided that.
Bill.
On Tue, 2020-03-10 at 19:31 -0600, home user wrote:
(On Tue, 2020-03-10 at 6:56 PM, Patrick wrote)
...The recommended way to upgrade is with dnf, ...
That's how I do it, just as the on-line instructions say. I'm not doing a new installation.
Then why do you say you'll be downloading a live version of Workstation? That's not necessary for upgrading.
I think you're mistaken. ...
I hope you're correct! What I originally said was merely a personal impression. Perhaps "problems" was not the best word to use.
Additional info., if it's relevant: My pre-upgrade back-up backs up user data only (with one exception), and only what the users (me) directly, deliberately create/modify. The exception: I back up only one hidden directory created by applications: .thunderbird. No systems files are backed up; I don't have the space and time.
Sure, that's standard procedure. All the same, if /home is on a separate partition it isn't really necessary and I've never done it for an upgrade (other than my usual nightly backup of course).
One possible concern is intentional changes, improvements, that could cause problems or break things if I don't know about them in advance, and therefore don't properly prepare. Since my last upgrade (to f30, in October), I've noticed changes in my grub menu. The dracut entry disappeared. Another emergency entry disappeared. One of two windows-7 entries no longer works. That's one example of what I'm concerned about. The change in Thunderbird in the last upgrade caused me a lot of trouble. I wonder if there was something I could/should have done beforehand that would have avoided that.
You can review the Release Notes before doing the upgrade. That usually tells you stuff you need to know. However, Fedora is designed to be a fast-moving distro, so a degree of breakage is always possible. The only way to know is either to wait for a long time (which you seem to be doing as F31 is well into its lifecycle by now) or do a test install, say on a VM. Personally, I tend to jump in within a few days of release, given that a lot of testing has already happened by then.
poc
On 2020-03-11 18:42, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I tend to jump in within a few days of release, given that a lot of testing has already happened by then.
+1
And, I always review...
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/dnf-system-upgrade/
On 2020-03-11 at 20:05:21 Ed Greshko wrote:
On 2020-03-11 18:42, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
I tend to jump in within a few days of release, given that a lot of testing has already happened by then.
+1
And, I always review...
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/dnf-system-upgrade/
Excellent link! Another good link is:
https://fedoramagazine.org/upgrading-fedora-30-to-fedora-31/
On Tue, 10 Mar 2020 20:58:03 +0100, home user mattisonw@comcast.net wrote:
stand-alone home workstation; f30; dual-boot (with windows-7); Gnome (mainly).
I plan to upgrade to f31 in about a month. I looked thru the instructions for the upgrade. I know that beforehand,
- I should do a back-up, and
- that I should download the Fedora Workstation Live image to a USB
stick.
F31 seems to have had more problems than the past several (6+ years) of releases. I don't have any data; that's just my impression based on this list. (I am curious what actual data would show.)
I (Ger van Dijck) had no problems upgrading Fedora30 to Fedora31.
question 1: In addition to doing a back-up and making a live image USB stick, what preparations should I make to, within reason, minimize the probability of problems when I do the upgrade?
Just make a backup.
question 2: How do a make an f30 Fedora Workstation Live image on my USB stick? I found a place in the Fedora website to do f31, but I seriously want f30 for this.
Install Fedora Mediawriter : It is easy to work with and needs no further explanattion.
Thank-you! Bill.
Wish you succes !
Regards ,
Ger van Dijck.
users mailing list -- users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org
(see the upgrade instructions) I did that before opening this thread:
I plan to upgrade to f31 in about a month. I looked thru the instructions for the upgrade.
(release notes) I had already seen those, too. They do not tell me things I should do before upgrading to prevent trouble. For example, I don't recall the f30 release notes telling me to back up each user's .thunderbird before doing the upgrade.
(Fedora magazine article) That tells me nothing more than what the upgrade instructions say.
If, as Ger implies, there's nothing (more) that I need to do beforehand, that's fine.
(On Wed., 2020-03-11 5:42 AM, Patrick wrote)
Then why do you say you'll be downloading a live version of Workstation? That's not necessary for upgrading.
Y'all are missing something. The upgrade instructions advise (I realize this is not required): "WARNING .... As a precaution, download the Fedora Workstation Live image https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/ in the event something goes wrong." The Fedora Workstation Live image is not needed as a part of the upgrade process proper, but in case something goes wrong. If someone does an upgrade, and then afterwards can't log in, or worse, can't boot successfully, then he has something to fall back on. Power down, plug the USB stick with the Fedora Workstation Live image on it into one of the workstation's USB ports, power up, and he has at least some functionality, hopefully enough to diagnose and fix whatever went wrong. This is also useful when other uncommon things go wrong (e.g. hard drive problem, as I learned almost 3 years ago!).
(Fedora Media Writer) Already have it. I could not find a man page for it. bash.1[~]: man mediawriter No manual entry for mediawriter bash.2[~]: which mediawriter /usr/bin/mediawriter bash.3[~]: Tried it anyway. I saw no way of getting f30 onto my USB stick. "https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/" also gives no hint of a way of making an f30 Fedora Workstation Live image. If something goes wrong with upgrading to f31 via dnf, I want f30 on the USB stick, not f31! Back to original question #2: "How do a make an f30 Fedora Workstation Live image on my USB stick?" ... or is this now impossible?
On 3/11/20 12:24 PM, home user wrote:
(see the upgrade instructions) I did that before opening this thread:
I plan to upgrade to f31 in about a month. I looked thru the instructions for the upgrade.
(release notes) I had already seen those, too. They do not tell me things I should do before upgrading to prevent trouble. For example, I don't recall the f30 release notes telling me to back up each user's .thunderbird before doing the upgrade.
Why is that necessary? I've never had a problem with user data after an upgrade. But it's a good idea to back up your home directory regularly anyway.
(Fedora magazine article) That tells me nothing more than what the upgrade instructions say.
If, as Ger implies, there's nothing (more) that I need to do beforehand, that's fine.
My personal method is to run: dnf upgrade *dnf* systemd* *repos *release before doing the upgrade, but the best thing is to just make sure the existing install is fully up to date before starting. Those packages are selected to avoid issues with keys and picking up any fixes with dnf and systemd that might affect the upgrade process and offline boot.
(On Wed., 2020-03-11 5:42 AM, Patrick wrote)
Then why do you say you'll be downloading a live version of Workstation? That's not necessary for upgrading.
Y'all are missing something. The upgrade instructions advise (I realize this is not required): "WARNING .... As a precaution, download the Fedora Workstation Live image https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/ in the event something goes wrong." The Fedora Workstation Live image is not needed as a part of the upgrade process proper, but in case something goes wrong. If someone does an upgrade, and then afterwards can't log in, or worse, can't boot successfully, then he has something to fall back on. Power down, plug the USB stick with the Fedora Workstation Live image on it into one of the workstation's USB ports, power up, and he has at least some functionality, hopefully enough to diagnose and fix whatever went wrong. This is also useful when other uncommon things go wrong (e.g. hard drive problem, as I learned almost 3 years ago!).
It's always a good idea to have a live boot of some sort around.
(Fedora Media Writer) Already have it. I could not find a man page for it. bash.1[~]: man mediawriter No manual entry for mediawriter bash.2[~]: which mediawriter /usr/bin/mediawriter bash.3[~]: Tried it anyway. I saw no way of getting f30 onto my USB stick.
It's intended to install the latest version, but if you download a different one, you can use that to write it. Actually, I just noticed there's a dropdown if you click the "version 31" link that lets you pick 30 instead.
But if in future you want to find some specific version or spin, everything's at https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/.
(On 3/11/20 2:43 P.M., Samuel wrote)
Why is that necessary?
In the same WARNING block that advises"As a precaution, download the Fedora Workstation Live image https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/ https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/%3Ein the event something goes wrong.", the upgrade instructions also advise doing a back-up. It seems like good wisdom to me. It's not necessary, but good advice "in the event something goes wrong".
But it's a good idea to back up your home directory regularly anyway.
Agreed. I've been doing that (well, a cumulative incremental back-up, actually) weekly, just before doing my weekly patches.
(dnf upgrade *dnf* systemd* *repos *release)
The instructions advise something similar: doing full patches (dnf --refresh upgrade) just before doing the upgrade. That's what I do. I'm curious: is what you do significantly different?
It's intended... Actually, I just noticed there's a dropdown...
I missed that. Thank-you! I must shortly leave for someplace I must be for the evening, and I have places to go tomorrow morning. I'll try that tomorrow afternoon after the weekly patches. That's probably what I'm looking for.
But if in future you want to find some specific version or spin, everything's at https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/.
All I saw was something that looks like "ls" output, nothing to download. After I report back on mediawriter, I'd like to learn how to go that route. But let me try the mediawriter approach first.
Thank-you, Samuel.
On 3/11/20 2:59 PM, home user wrote:
(dnf upgrade *dnf* systemd* *repos *release)
The instructions advise something similar: doing full patches (dnf --refresh upgrade) just before doing the upgrade. That's what I do. I'm curious: is what you do significantly different?
I'm just trying to update the parts most likely to cause a problem with the upgrade process. Doing the full update is certainly better.
But if in future you want to find some specific version or spin, everything's at https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/.
All I saw was something that looks like "ls" output, nothing to download. After I report back on mediawriter, I'd like to learn how to go that route. But let me try the mediawriter approach first.
You have to follow down the tree a ways. For example: https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/ gets you to the regular release products. https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/releases/ if you want to get the labs spins.
Just a comment: If you don't put a blank line between your quotes and your replies, they're joined together, looking like one big quote.
(On 03/11/2020 3:59 PM, I wrote)
Actually, I just noticed there's a dropdown...
I missed that. ... I'll try that tomorrow afternoon after the weekly patches. That's probably what I'm looking for.
The first few tries failed. In two cases, the system didn't even shut down properly after the boot from the USB stick failed. One of those resulted in the CPU overheating. A friend (now retired; used to work for Cray and IBM) said something, I don't remember what, that triggered a vague memory that on my work station, booting from a USB stick only works from one or two specific ports, which take USB-2 (not USB-3) sticks. So I re-did the mediawriter, this time writing the download to a USB-2 stick. Then I put that stick in the first USB-2 port. It worked. (I always wanted to stick it to my tower!) I have not yet tried to do anything "rooty" yet.
Tomorrow, I'll stick it to my workstation again, and try to do something "rooty", and report.
On Thu, 2020-03-12 at 18:22 -0600, home user wrote:
a vague memory that on my work station, booting from a USB stick only works from one or two specific ports, which take USB-2 (not USB- 3) sticks. So I re-did the mediawriter, this time writing the download to a USB-2 stick. Then I put that stick in the first USB-2 port. It worked. (I always wanted to stick it to my tower!)
While it's entirely possible that some motherboards can't boot from some USB connectors at all, and some could be user-configured that way, it should be possible to create your install on USB stick plugged into any of the ports.
It's also possible that some USB sticks, themselves, aren't bootable.
Or that one particular creation techique won't work for them. I've had sticks where I simply used dd to copy to the ISO to them, and that worked fine. Others I had to use a tool like mediawriter.
(On Thu, 2020-03-12 at 6:22 PM, I wrote)
Tomorrow, I'll stick it to my workstation again, and try to do something "rooty", and report.
Tried it. After booting up off the stick, I had to do "su -" to do anything "rooty". But I notice that even then, I could not see much of anything in the workstation itself. For example, whether I do a journalctl or use the logs tool, I saw only the logs from the Fedora live session. So if something went wrong and I had to fall back to a Fedora live session, how would I access logs or other diagnostic information, or (for example) edit grub-related files, or (for example) free up disk space on the actual workstation hard drive?
(responding to Tim's 2020-03-13 1:12 AM post)
While it's entirely possible that some motherboards can't boot from some USB connectors at all, and some could be user-configured that way, it should be possible to create your install on USB stick plugged into any of the ports.
In my case, I think the problem is trying to boot from the USB-3 ports, not writing to the USB-3 port.
Or that one particular creation techique won't work for them. I've had sticks where I simply used dd to copy to the ISO to them, and that worked fine. Others I had to use a tool like mediawriter.
I used mediawriter. I don't see how simply using dd could work. I see that, using mediawriter puts only one file into my Downloads directory, but 5 top-level directories end up on my stick (was new/empty beforehand). That suggests that mediawriter did more than merely download and then copy.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 10:49:46 -0600 home user mattisonw@comcast.net wrote:
Tried it. After booting up off the stick, I had to do "su -" to do anything "rooty". But I notice that even then, I could not see much of anything in the workstation itself. For example, whether I do a journalctl or use the logs tool, I saw only the logs from the Fedora live session. So if something went wrong and I had to fall back to a Fedora live session, how would I access logs or other diagnostic information, or (for example) edit grub-related files, or (for example) free up disk space on the actual workstation hard drive?
The live image is its own OS, and has nothing to do with the installed OSs. So, you have to mount the installed image someplace, and then either cd there or chroot there, in order to do anything to the installed OS. I vaguely recall that /mnt/sysimage used to be used for this automatically. e.g. mount /dev/sd1 /mnt/sysimage where /dev/sd1 is the partition that contains the / of the installed system.
(On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 12:20 PM, Stan wrote)
So, you have to mount the installed image someplace, and then either cd there or chroot there, in order to do anything to the installed OS. I vaguely recall that /mnt/sysimage used to be used for this automatically. e.g. mount /dev/sd1 /mnt/sysimage where /dev/sd1 is the partition that contains the / of the installed system
[liveuser@localhost-live ~]$ su - [root@localhost-live ~]# mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/sysimage mount: /mnt/sysimage: mount point does not exist. [root@localhost-live ~]#
I do not know how to determine what to use as the second argument.
This might be easier if we make this more concrete. So let's suppose I want to do "journalctl" or "less /var/log/dnf" After booting up the live image and doing the "su -", what do I do?
On 3/13/20 5:49 PM, home user wrote:
This might be easier if we make this more concrete. So let's suppose I want to do "journalctl" or "less /var/log/dnf" After booting up the live image and doing the "su -", what do I do?
In general, it's better to use "sudo -i" instead. "su" requires you to know the root password which is usually not even set. "sudo" uses your user password.
sudo -i mount /dev/sda6 /mnt chroot /mnt journalctl less /var/log/dnf
(On 3/13/20 6:59 PM, Samuel wrote)
In general, it's better to use "sudo -i" instead. "su" requires you to know the root password which is usually not even set. "sudo" uses your user password.
sudo -i mount /dev/sda6 /mnt chroot /mnt journalctl less /var/log/dnf
almost... [liveuser@localhost-live ~]$ sudo -i
We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others. #2) Think before you type. #3) With great power comes great responsibility.
[root@localhost-live ~]# mount /dev/sda6 /mnt [root@localhost-live ~]# chroot /mnt Error, do this: mount -t proc proc /proc /usr/bin/basename: missing operand Try '/usr/bin/basename --help' for more information. bash.1[/]: mount -t proc proc /proc bash.2[/]: less /var/log/dnf.log bash.3[/]:
So now I can do "rooty" things in the workstation hard drive when using Fedora live. I might need this soon....
A few times while trying to use Fedora live, the workstation froze while in Firefox. A few times, Fedora live did not shut down properly; and the cooling fan surged; and I had to do a hard manual shutdown. Twice, very early in boot-up, before the grub menu appeared, a warning about the cpu being hot appeared. Thursday, I had to go into windows-7 briefly to see if my board was bios or uefi; it froze during shutdown.
Both Samuel and Tim have made suggestions and asked questions that I want to follow up on. But with hints of hardware trouble, I need to turn my attention to the hardware. I'll open a new thread on that.
The questions I asked when starting this thread are answered. I thank those who tried to help for their time and effort. I've marked this thread "SOLVED".
Bill.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 18:49:58 -0600 home user mattisonw@comcast.net wrote:
[liveuser@localhost-live ~]$ su - [root@localhost-live ~]# mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/sysimage mount: /mnt/sysimage: mount point does not exist. [root@localhost-live ~]#
I do not know how to determine what to use as the second argument.
Samuel has already answered your question to your satisfaction, so this is just for future reference. At this point you could have used man mount to see how mount works. With your background you are fully capable of resolving simple errors like this. Mount doesn't create the mount point, so my memory was faulty and the mount point didn't already exist. Samuel got around this by using plain /mnt, as that always exists, but if there is anything else trying to use /mnt/[some directory], that will cause problems (unlikely from an ISO, though).
This might be easier if we make this more concrete. So let's suppose I want to do "journalctl" or "less /var/log/dnf" After booting up the live image and doing the "su -", what do I do?
Something that has worked for me in the past is to chroot to the installed system as you already are and then run dnf update to bring the system fully up to date. Often that will resolve a problem.
But all this is irrelevant if the problem is hardware.
On 3/13/20 9:49 AM, home user wrote:
I used mediawriter. I don't see how simply using dd could work. I see that, using mediawriter puts only one file into my Downloads directory, but 5 top-level directories end up on my stick (was new/empty beforehand). That suggests that mediawriter did more than merely download and then copy.
It opens up the iso and puts the files in a partition so that you can still use the flash drive as a storage device. However, the iso file is designed so that you can directly write it to the raw drive and it will be bootable. e.g. "dd if=Fedora31.iso of=/dev/sdb" That will wipe out anything on the drive and will use all the space since there will not be a partition table. But sometimes that will boot in cases the other method won't.
Tim:
it's entirely possible that some motherboards can't boot from some USB connectors at all, and some could be user-configured that way
home user:
In my case, I think the problem is trying to boot from the USB-3 ports, not writing to the USB-3 port.
Just out of curiosity, have you been through your BIOS/UEFI to see if there were boot options for those ports? (I'd solve your other issues first, leave this for afterwards.)
Or that one particular creation techique won't work for them. I've had sticks where I simply used dd to copy to the ISO to them, and that worked fine. Others I had to use a tool like mediawriter.
I used mediawriter. I don't see how simply using dd could work.
It would depend on the image that you were copying to a drive. If the image has a suitable bootblock for USB flash drives, and your motherboard, then it can make bootable ones.
I see that, using mediawriter puts only one file into my Downloads directory, but 5 top-level directories end up on my stick (was new/empty beforehand). That suggests that mediawriter did more than merely download and then copy.
While that's true, it's the same kind of thing with using dd. Either way, you copy an *image* of a file system to a device. When that devices is booted/mounted normally, it's a pre-made file system.
The specialist tools sometimes give you more options.
On 2020-03-12 03:24, home user wrote:
I had already seen those, too. They do not tell me things I should do before upgrading to prevent trouble. For example, I don't recall the f30 release notes telling me to back up each user's .thunderbird before doing the upgrade.
That is because your issue with thunderbird was not a common problem. Other than you, I don't think anyone had issues. I don't even recall if a real reason was determined for your particular issue with t-bird.
(On 2020-03-12 3:25 PM, Ed wrote)
...I don't even recall if a real reason was determined for your
particular issue with t-bird. Not that I know of. My best guess: The f29->f30 upgrade included the Thunderbird full version upgrade. I think Fedora held up the Thunderbird upgrade (did not include it in f29 patches) deliberately, though I don't know why. Just a guess.
I recall at that time searching Thunderbird support, and seeing that others did have similar problems with that Thunderbird upgrade. But that discussion was there, not in this list. I was not a part of that discussion.