[PLUG] Clean OS install instead of upgrade (was Authentication denied: User doesn't exist 521)

Matt McKenzie lnxknight at gmail.com
Fri Nov 5 02:50:41 UTC 2010


On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 11:14 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net>wrote:

> On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 22:57:15 -0700
> Marvin Kosmal <mkosmal at gmail.com> dijo:
>
> >Why not do a clean install.??..  Then just add you home directory
> >later?
>
> <Sigh>
>
> I get this response all the time.
>
> Before doing the upgrade, as a precaution, I wrote down all the apps in
> Gnome application launcher. There were 112 entries. And that doesn't
> include all the command line utilities that I use.
>
> The last time I did a fresh install was when I moved from Ubuntu Jaunty
> to Fedora 11. It took five days to reinstall all my applications and
> get things back the way they were.
> _______________________________________________
>


Hello,

IMHO, you get this response because it is the preferred method, especially
if you are more than 2 versions distant from current.  Doing an upgrade from
N-2 or earlier almost invariably leads to... headaches ;) (N being current)
Same thing with upgrading more than one step at a time.

If you are all set now, then this is something to keep in mind for future
purposes.

One of the best ways to go, is to keep a separate partition for /home, this
way when you do a clean install of the newer version, all your user data
remains intact.  Plus, you can backup your important /etc config files to a
subdirectory in /home (like /home/[user]/backup for instance), and compare
those with the new ones after the install.

Plus, here is a good tip for you, if you remain on Fedora going forward
(which I encourage you to do!).
There is a much easier way to keep track of your installed programs, than
going through manually and writing them all down.

Before the upgrade install, run this command as root (or put sudo at the
beginning):

rpm -q --qf '%{NAME}\n' -a > rpmlist.txt

This will make a list of ALL your installed programs, and will strip out the
version numbers (this is important).
You can then sort alphabetically if you want (it won't really matter to yum,
but makes it easier to look through yourself):

cat rpmlist.txt | sort > rpmlistsorted.txt

This will give you a list of all installed programs, by name only (no
version number included), so when you go to install them on the new system,
it won't get hung up on version numbers, it will install whatever version is
current for the new release.  I usually keep these commands saved in a txt
file in my /home directory.

When you are ready, you have your config files backed up and this rpmlist
created, then do a CLEAN install of the new release (making sure during the
hard drive setup phase to tell it to mount the /home partition but do NOT
format it).

After that is done, fetch all the available updates.

Then, you can run this command (again as root or with sudo), and it will
process through, telling you many of them are already installed (which is
expected), and then it will get to the ones that are not installed, and
install them.

xargs yum -y install < rpmlistsorted.txt

Also, if you have a separate /home, when you log in after the new install,
going through the initial setup, you create a user with the same username as
before, and it will automatically reuse your existing /home/[username]
directory, and once all your programs are reinstalled, they _should_ pick up
any custom configurations you have saved in your /home directory structure.

The yum install part will take a while, so fire it off and go grab a coffee
or something.  But, letting that chug for an hour or so is a lot less hassle
than going through manually for a week or two.

This is the method I have been using for some time now, and just did it with
Fedora 14.  It makes things quite easy.  Note there may still be some
tweaking necessary after all is said and done, but not many many days worth.

So to sum up, stick these in a txt file somewhere in /home, and save them,
run the first two before the new install, and the last one after.

Before install:
rpm -q --qf '%{NAME}\n' -a > rpmlist.txt
(optional)
cat rpmlist.txt | sort > rpmlistsorted.txt

After install:
xargs yum -y install < rpmlistsorted.txt


HTH!

... and may the Source be with you.

----------
Matt M.
LinuxKnight



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