FC2 to FC3 upgrade with Yum

I finally got around to upgrading one of my non-critical FC2 desktop boxes to FC3 using yum and figured I'd dump my notes for Google. This covers the basic upgrade process.

You may also want to take a peek at Seth's original post to fedora-test-list on FC2 to FC3 upgrades or Brandon Hutchinson's notes on various Redhat and Fedora upgrades with yum.

Before we begin

Commands with sudo assume you have root privileges on the box. You can use sudo, su over to root, or something else - whatever. Just make sure these commands are executed as root.

Install GPG Keys

You may already have the Fedora GPG keys installed. If not, or just to be safe, you can run this command:

$ sudo rpm --import http://fedora.redhat.com/about/security/4F2A6FD2.txt

Install fedora-release and yum packages

You will need to do this the old fashioned way¹.

$ rpmbase=http://redhat.secsup.org/fedora/core/3/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/
$ wget $rpmbase/yum-2.1.11-3.noarch.rpm
$ wget $rpmbase/fedora-release-3-8.i386.rpm
$ sudo rpm -Uvh --force fedora-release*.rpm
$ sudo rpm -Uvh yum-*.rpm

Upgrade Yum, Python, and RPM

Upgrade yum, python and rpm. This will help make sure the rest of the upgrade goes smoothly. There are some issues in the rpm provided with FC2 that have been worked out in FC3.

 $ sudo yum upgrade rpm python yum

Just for fun, and with the memory of yum 2.0 fresh in your mind, run the following:

 $ sudo yum list updates

This should just fly compared to yum 2.0. We all supported Seth in his decision to sell his soul to the devil for this speed-up. Seth, your soul has saved thousands of people thousands of minutes of waiting; we thank you!

Upgrade everything else

 $ sudo yum upgrade

This will take a while. Even if you get lucky and hit on a fast mirror, it's still going to take a while.

Fix conflicts if needed

If you stuck with the Fedora Core, Extras (fedora.us), and Livna repositories you shouldn't have any problems here. However, if you've installed RPMs from other third party repositories or RPMs found in the wild, you may run into a few conflicts.

For example, I got the following on my initial run of yum upgrade:

Error: missing dep: libgtop-2.0.so.2 for pkg gdesklets

The gdesklets RPM I had installed was built by me and likely had multiple packaging issues. The easiest way to proceed is to just remove the offending packages. Worry about reinstalling them after the upgrade:

$ sudo rpm -ev gdesklets
error: Failed dependencies:
    gdesklets is needed by (installed) gdesklets-starterbar-0.30-0.noarch
$ sudo rpm -ev gdesklets gdesklets-starterbar

After clearing up conflicts start the upgrade again:

$ sudo yum upgrade

Wrapping Up

You may want to go into /etc/grub.conf as root and change the default kernel:

default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp)
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp ro root=LABEL=root2 rhgb quiet
    initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.681_FC3smp.img
title Fedora Core (2.6.8-1.521smp)
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1.521smp ro root=LABEL=root2 rhgb quiet
    initrd /initrd-2.6.8-1.521smp.img

I've selected the newly install 2.6.9 kernel as my default.

All that's left to do now is to reboot. I haven't had a chance to dive into changes but nothing has jumped out as being completely broken.