upgrading to Fedora Core 1 with apt

[Steven Pritchard <steve@silug.org>]

Since Fedora Core 2 will be out in a couple of weeks, the plan is for
Red Hat Linux 9 to be EOL'd, which means everybody still running Red
Hat 9 (or earlier) needs to make a choice now...  Upgrade to Fedora
Core 1 (or 2, but if you are running RH9, I assume you aren't eager to
try large amounts of semi-experimental software), switch to RHEL, or
start pulling updates from Fedora Legacy.

Personally, I think upgrading to Fedora Core 1 is the right thing to
do.  It's been rock-solid for me for several months now on many
systems, and upgrades from various older versions of Red Hat (7.2
through 9) have been almost 100% painless.  In addition, some of the
features in FC1 (like exec-shield) make it particularly appropriate
for servers.

I've posted updated instructions on upgrading to FC1 here:

  http://www.archlug.org/kwiki/MigratingRedHatToFedora

(I'll probably remove some of the older information from that page
later.  The current stuff is at the bottom.)

I'd suggest checking that page for a nicely formatted (not to mention
edited for corrections) copy of the instructions, but here's a copy
for reference:

This assumes that you already have apt installed (from freshrpms, for
example). Also note that this only applies to Fedora Core 1, although
it should work for upgrading from just about any version of Red Hat
Linux. (If you are upgrading from Red Hat 8.0, please consider just
upgrading via CD. There are bugs in Red Hat 8.0's rpm that are
exponentially more likely to bite you in the ass on big rpm
transactions.)

1) Update /etc/apt/sources.list:

  # os        = Fedora Core packages
  # updates   = Fedora Core updates
  # stable    = Fedora.us (Extras) packages
  # kspei     = Steve's random stuff (optional, mostly stuff submitted to fedora. us)
  # freshrpms = freshrpms.net packages (optional, mostly desktop stuff)
  rpm http://apt.kspei.com fedora/1/i386 os updates stable kspei freshrpms
  rpm-src http://apt.kspei.com fedora/1/i386 os updates stable kspei freshrpms

  # Fedora Extras non-US packages (optional)
  rpm http://rpm.livna.org fedora/1/i386 stable
  rpm-src http://rpm.livna.org fedora/1/i386 stable

  # Macromedia Flash plug-in (optional)
  rpm http://sluglug.ucsc.edu/macromedia/apt fedora/1 macromedia

2) Create/edit /etc/apt/preferences:

  Package: *
  Pin: release c=os
  Pin-Priority: 992

  Package: *
  Pin: release c=stable
  Pin-Priority: 991

This will help prevent any conflicts between the various repositories.

3) apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

If apt-get dist-upgrade fails, you probably just need to clean some
things up manually. The simplest route is usually to just apt-get
remove the offending packages.

For safety, after upgrading rpm, always run rpm --rebuilddb before
doing anything else.

4) Run apt-get update to run the mirror selector (press q since you
are already using a mirror) and check for any problems. apt-get -f
install should fix any problems. If not, try apt-get -f dist-upgrade,
but be sure not to let apt remove anything that shouldn't be removed.

5) The next fun thing is to update gpg keys for any of the non-Fedora
repositories you want to use.

  # My key, for the "kspei" stuff.
  wget -O /etc/apt/gpg/gpg-pubkey-cf71a040-3cf27730 http://apt.kspei.com/conf/gpg-pubkey-cf71a040-3cf27730
  # Freshrpms key
  wget -O /etc/apt/gpg/gpg-pubkey-e42d547b-3960bdf1 http://ftp.kspei.com/pub/freshrpms/RPM-GPG-KEY
  # Livna key
  wget -O /etc/apt/gpg/gpg-pubkey-a109b1ec-3f6e28d5 http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY

apt-get will automatically install any gpg keys the next time you run
it (assuming they're in /etc/apt/gpg/ and are named gpg-pubkey-*.

6) apt-get dist-upgrade again. That should upgrade your kernel to the
latest version and install a few things that the newer version of apt
knows about (like replacing redhat-release with fedora-release.

7) Reboot. You should be all done.

Steve
-- 
steve@silug.org           | Southern Illinois Linux Users Group
(618)398-7360             | See web site for meeting details.
Steven Pritchard          | http://www.silug.org/

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