[YLUG] fedora 10 login

[Patrick Dupre]

Hello Mike,

Thank for your advices.

I am running redhat since version RH4.
I experienced several times problems when updating to a new release it is
why I am always reluctant to udpade my machines.
The last update, from FC7 to Fedora 10 was the worst one and it happened
on 2 machines. The problem was the mess up of the rpmdb. The installation
of packages was very unstable until it even lost some packages !
This seems to be due to a bug in Fedora since FC4, never fixed !!!!!!!!!!
I spent hours and hours to understand and finally change the blocksize of
the / partition (where rpmbd is set).
The only problem is that saving the / and restoring it may require
additional work.

Anyway, things seem to be going fine now, even if their is still some
minor things to fix.
1) Fedora should fix the bug that I do not really understand.
It is barely documented on the internet.
In fact, I also have an installation which fit entirely on 1 partition
(lvm2) in blocksize 1024 and the problem did not appear !!!!
2) Before they fix the bug, they should award to not install the rpmdb
on a partition in 1024 blocksize, what is going on in 2048 ?

SELinux seems also tricky to manage !

Regards.


> On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Patrick Dupre <pd520 at york.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Because a bug in fedora, the rpmdb does not like blocksize of 1024 !!
>
> Did you get the Fedora installer to format the root partition during
> the install?  If not then you should have done, and then the blocksize
> would have been set appropriately and you would not have had the
> problem at all!
>
> If you followed the standard way of installing I really do believe
> that you would not have come across the problems you are currently
> facing.  It appears that you do a very non-standard way of installing
> and using partitions from reading some of your previous posts to the
> lists.  When was the partition that holds your system formatted? Did
> you try to copy a disk containing a running system to a different
> computer?
>
> I think that if I were in your position I would re-install and let the
> installer do the formatting of the root partition - in addition I
> would, if the other partitions you are using were created a long time
> ago, also get them formatted during install - and copy all the files
> back afterwards from a backup you make before even starting the
> install.
>
> I seem to remember you have a large number of partitions, and a rather
> limited amount of disk space?  If so it would be a good idea to spend
> a bit of effort to get a larger disk, and then make a backup of your
> files onto an independent disk, including any setup files in /etc /var
> and /root as well as your user files - rsync is your friend here.
> Then put in a new HD and if you like use one of the liveCD linux
> distros such as Knoppix or PartedMagic to partition the disk as you
> want it, and create the appropriate files systems on the partitions
> (ext3 for / /opt and /boot if you use it, and swap or vfat for others
> as necessary. Then run a fresh F10 install to it and ensure that you
> choose "custom" disk partitioning when you reach that point in the
> install, so that you can preserve the partitioning you did prior to
> install, but asking the installer to format the root partition as
> ext3. Or you can do the partitioning as part of the install itself by
> selecting custom partitioning without having pre-partitioned the
> drive.
>
> This will take time but you are more than likely to save time overall
> by not having the kind of awkward disk issues you currently appear to
> have.
>
> Often it is very important that you give a full history of how you
> have arrived at the current problems and not post just the description
> of the present problem - on this list as well as the Fedora list you
> need to state clearly what you did in the run-up to the problem you
> are seeing otherwise you end up trying to fix things that really
> should not have been broken in the first place.
>
> When I install Fedora I "always" ask the installer to format the /
> partition - it makes sense.  At least you are then starting with a
> clean partition and know there will not be any old files lying around
> on it that may cause conflicts with the new system.
>
> Anyway I hope this helps.
>
>
>

-- 
---
==========================================================================
  Patrick DUPRÉ                      |   |
  Department of Chemistry            |   |    Phone: (44)-(0)-1904-434384
  The University of York             |   |    Fax:   (44)-(0)-1904-432516
  Heslington                         |   |
  York YO10 5DD  United Kingdom      |   |    email: pd520 at york.ac.uk
==========================================================================