Re: Linux - a quandary!

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Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:59:27 +0000

Steve wrote:
> Hi Folks
> I`ve been using Linux for about 5yrs now after throwing the towel in
> with Windows 98 and its sodding blue screens and recently thought I`d
> upgrade my desktop pc from Core 2 to Core 3 so biting the bullet went
> for it and low and behold the usual things that worked before and don`t
> now occured- bog standard Robotics external modem - no chance (why
> Kinternet doesn`t like it I don`t know), usb scanner - nah!, onboard
> sound - sort of!, Epson printer - nada! and so on so I thought "Sod it
> here we go again" now at this point I would have taken days configuring
> and retrying things to get it all to work but its christmas so I put pc
> away for a day or two.
> My other half unbeknown to me buys me a laptop with Windows XP on and I
> thought `Soon have that off and Linux on` but thought again as its been
> paid for and part of the package and really I should give it a go and so
> I did and found myself really enjoying using it and everything works
> straight off. It took 20mins to create a wireless network with my laptop
> and win98 partition on my desktop ( yes I kept win 98 just in case;-))
> using the XP wizard and I`ve never tried networking before and it seems
> to be able to cope with anything I throw at it god knows how long it
> would take me to learn and configure a Linux/windows wired network let
> alone a wireless one!.
> So theres my quandary do I embrace Bill`s brave new world where
> everything `seems` to work ok or continue burning the midnight oil
> configuring the latest version of Linux?
> Don`t get me wrong I have enjoyed using (and abusing) Linux immensely
> over the years and have learnt a lot but I find it so frustrating the
> backwards (or should that be forwards!) compatibility with various
> versions of Linux I`ve tried over the years why the hell a pc working
> fine on version 8 say of a distro goes tits up with version 9 I don`t
> know ?.
> I don`t suppose for one minute anyone gives a stuff which os I end up
> using but I do feel a certain loyalty to Linux but comments from folk in
> the group would be welcome.
> I suppose I`d save six quid a month not buying `Linux Format` excellent
> mag BTW.
> Steve

Often the reason an upgrade has problems is because it doesn't like to
change config files that you have manually changed. You might have
something special in there that the installer doesn't know about. If
some part of the system hasd changed location, or must be pointed to a
new lib file, then the installer can not assume that your manual
settings will be compatible with those changes.

However, you can install without losing any data, even most of your
settings will be intact, but in a way that will freshen your computer.

Before starting do the usual run through to remind yourself what part of
your file system is on which partition,

First though I will say that installing 'on top' of a previous install
is by no means an upgrade and might cause more problems than it cures.
An example being the location of java, I'm not sure which distro the
location of the java progs changed, but you would run the risk of
pointing to different versions from different programs.

So I'm suggesting a clean install but keeping intact your /home and any
special volumes you might have, the example below will soon have
/database, being the main company database I would exclude this from any
clean up formatting.

Example
df -ah on this new server which isn't actually in use yet, gives,

/dev/hdd8 4.9G 224M 4.4G 5% /
/dev/hdd1 289M 9.9M 264M 4% /boot
/dev/hdd11 149G 111M 142G 1% /home
/dev/hdd5 7.7G 33M 7.3G 1% /opt
/dev/hdd9 981M 17M 915M 2% /tmp
/dev/hdd6 7.7G 2.6G 4.8G 36% /usr
/dev/hdd7 4.9G 88M 4.5G 2% /usr/local
/dev/hdd3 7.7G 247M 7.1G 4% /var
sunrpc 0 0 0 - /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs

So, if i were upgrading I would note the /home is on /dev/hdd11, that
one does not want reformatting. If you have been developing websites on
your machine then hopefully you have a seperate /var/www. If you haven't
got it seperated then you will need to protect /var also.

Note each of the file system devs (remember the installer doesn't
usually list the volume names, only the device names), decide if they
are right as they are or if you ought to do some resizing. opt for
example is more heavily used than it once was.

Also, if you do not have many users then type,
cat /etc/passwd | grep yourusername

and note the username and the two IDs. Example,
shaun:x:550:560::/home/shaunh:/bin/bash
Means that Shaun has a user ID of 550 and a group ID of 560

With this information you can create the users on your new installation
with the correct user and group IDs, then the /home directories do not
need any extra work to get the user rights back.

Now you could run through a fresh install, when it comes to the
partioning go for the manual option. If this is entirely new to you then
you should look on the redhat or fedora web to make sure you know what
you are doing as far as resizing is concerned, though it is very good
and you would have to be particularly unlucky to make a major boob in
there.

However, if you have decided that the current partition is fine, then
all you need to do is match the mount points with the volumes. Select
the volume, from the above example /dev/hdd3 then select edit and all
you want to do is select /var as the mount point.

Allow the install to format all except those that you have seperated
out, such as /home.

When the new system is onboard, first go into users and groups. make
sure your firt user (created in the install) is the same ID it was
before, then create the others, specifying the IDs.

Now go ahead with other parts of the manual side of the setup, such as
network and applications that need special treatment.

Particularly important for those moving from FDC2 to FDC3 is to get the
latest java engine from Sunsystems. I had some problems with Firefox
(the new default web browser), might be worth downloading this and the
instructions before you start the upgrade.

For those worried about selinux, they isn't any major problems with it,
certainly not on standard systems, it simply means that provided you
don't do anything silly with user rights, then you are on a much safer
system than you were before. It protects you from bogus programs that
would encourage you to load and let it run as root, which then has no
limits on your system. We are all being encouraged to make use of our
update systems as various application vendors come into line with the
selinux idea.

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