[sclug] Installing without bootstrap

[Tom Dawes-Gamble]

On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 01:43 +0100, James Beckett wrote:
> I'm well overdue for upgrading my home server box (it's still on RH9)
> and am looking at probably FC5. There's a bunch of data and system
> configs I want to retain (it runs various websites etc) and I want
> to minimise the downtime without having to actually set up a temporary
> replacement.
> 
> Is it possible (and not too error-prone) to install onto a fresh scsi
> drive from within a current running system, allowing one to configure
> to taste and copy across data before rebooting into the new system
> (and conveniently being able to multiboot back into the old)? Possibly
> even run the new system in a VM before committing to it?
> 
> -jmb

Hi,

I'm under going a similar dilemma myself.  But I don't have the luxury
of a second drive.   I have plenty of disk space but the disk is not
partitioned just how I would like it. Add to this the fact I want to
move to an LVM based install it's not easy.

In your scenario and assuming you don't want an LVM install what I would
try is as follows.

Copy the RH9 partitions to the new SCSI drive and verify it boots OK.
Then upgrade that RH9 to FC5 that should retain all of your
configuration and would probably give you the least hassle.  That
assumes FC5 can upgrade an RH9.  The downside is, if it worked is, it
would not give you the LVM install.

I've been looking at the possibility of converting to LVM after the
install but that doesn't seem trivial.  

I've not really had any problems upgrading from one RH/FC release to the
next I've not tried to do a big jump of several releases though.  One of
my colleagues always seems to have problems doing it.  But in fairness
he does do some bizarre things with his configuration.

regards,
Tom.


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.tmdg.co.uk/pipermail/sclug/attachments/20060825/c4de1bac/attachment.bin