Re: dist-upgrade gone wrong -- Fedora.US package meta-lists are

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

On Sat, 2004-11-20 at 12:30, Ray Holtz wrote:
> OK Folks, I need some help, I hosed my system.
> Last Sunday I decided to upgrade my home server from FC2 to 3 using 
> apt-get dist-upgrade.   First attempt failed, then I realized apt-get 
> was using a FC2 repository, so I changed the mirror list from 2 to 3, 
> and went about my way with the dist-upgrade.

The Fedora Core 3 package meta-lists for APT at Fedora.US (and mirrors)
are _incomplete_!  They are _lacking_ some of the _key_ indexes, even
though all the packages are there.  The packages themselves are _not_
the indexes, but the files in the "base" directory and _several_ are
missing.

You will get these warnings when you "apt-get update" after changing
your repository lists from 2 -> 3.  If you ignore them then you will be
mixing FC2 and FC3 indexes -- not good.  The only workaround is to built
your own set of indexes locally.  I'm seriously considering doing that
myself.

This is an issue in addition to and separate from the fact that
Fedora.US has yet to push out Fedora Extras packages for FC3.  There is
a new release control approach to Fedora Extras, hence the delay.  In
fact, I just pushed questions surround this to fedora-list and
fedora-devel-list about an hour ago -- especially the fact that
Fedora.US currently _lacks_ complete "base" files for FC3.

> From there everything still worked so I didn't reboot.

Again, you will have mixed packages from FC2 and FC3, because not all of
the package meta-lists for APT have been updated for FC3.  So you have
downloaded only a "partial" list for FC3, and your APT installation is
using many of the prior indexes from FC2.  Again, not good.

> Then at Monday's meeting someone told me that not all of the services
> were restarted with the dist-upgrade and I should reboot it anyway.

Never reboot, unless you want to boot a new kernel.

> I forgot to then, but after trying to log in yesterday, it acted
> funky. so I rebooted.  Grub boots up, then it boots into my
> 2.6.8-1.521 kernel..... wait, that was FC2's kernel,

Yes, again, the FC3 package meta-lists for APT are _incomplete_ on
Fedora.US, even though the entire FC3 distribution (and updates) are
there.  Why someone put the packages out there but did _not_ build
complete indexes is beyond me, but that's the problem right now.

This is in addition to the fact that there are no Fedora Extras packages
either.

> where is 2.6.9-1.667????   I guess the dist-upgrade didn't include the
> new kernel.

Correct.  Because the files under "base" are either missing or
incomplete.  Therefore, even though kernel-2.6.9-1.667 is out on
Fedora.US, there is _no_ APT meta-list file that says to grab it.  Hence
why you can_not_ do it right now -- unless you build your own APT
repository locally with the required files.

I noticed this last night when I tried to do an "apt-get update" after
changing my repository references from 2 -> 3 (excluding Fedora
Extras).  That's when I noticed Fedora.US _lacks_ several files under
"base."

> so when I try to boot into 2.6.8, I get this.....
> #Begin boot text
>   Booting 'Fedora Core 2 (2.6.8-1.521)'
> root (hd0,0)
>   Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1.521 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
>   [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x100, size=0x14aab9]
> initrd /initrd-2.6.8-1.521.img
> [Linux-initrd @ 0x9fbe00, 0x2f62c bytes]
> Uncopressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel
> audit(1100949754.708:0): initialized
> Red Hat nash version 3.5.22 starting
> #end boot text
> and then it just hangs there. So my question is, how do I get the new 
> kernel into the operating system to run?  I tried booting with the 
> recovery cd and that works to get me a prompt.  and I can chroot 
> /mnt/sysimage to get to be root on my box.  from there I used wget to 
> download the new kernel rpm from fedora.us, but when I try to install 
> it,  it says its already installed (because it is running from recovery 
> CD) so it wouldn't install.  So I add a new boot option to grub .conf 
> file (just in case) to use 2.6.9-1.667. But when it boots, it says 
> 'Error 15: File not found'.
> Any ideas on how to get this to boot?

Here's one way ...

1)  Download and record the Fedora Core 2 recovery CD.

2)  Boot into your system and chroot (if the recovery CD didn't)

3)  Start network services (service network start)

4)  Change your APT files to point _back_ to Fedora Core 2 repositories

5)  Run "apt-get update" to download the "pure" FC2 indexes

6)  Try "apt-get dist-upgrade" -- it will probably _fail_

7)  Make a note of all the packages that are "newer" than in the "pure"
FC2 repositories

8)  Try using various "repair" functions in APT to downgrade, or do it
manually (download) and run RPM --oldpackage directly.

This will return your system to FC2.

> Thanks,

In a nutshell, I think someone should have _not_ made _any_ FC3 package
meta-lists for APT on Fedora.US _until_ they had them all.  Otherwise
people assume the errors were not critical, assume they can upgrade to
the full distro because the packages _are_ there, but then run into the
real issue of the packages _not_ being complete.

Frankly I think someone, _anyone_, with write access to Fedora.US should
either _delete_ all those incomplete files under "base" or change the
permissions on the directory to go-rwx. 

-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                    b.j.smith@ieee.org 
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
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