[SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 03:17:28PM +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 13 Jun, Matthew Palmer wrote: I wouldn't say that it can't fail, but I can't think of too many upgrades of Debian or Ubuntu boxes where it's completely done itself in, and I've done some pretty crazy stuff over the years -- custom packages, mixing releases, that sort of thing. On the other hand, I have seen some people who've managed to make a complete dog's breakfast of their systems such that the system won't upgrade, but I think that's more PEBKAC than PEID. That seems to be the consensus. (No one has volunteered any serious problems in upgrading a Debian system.) Though Billy Kwong noted that it depended a bit on how many packages you have installed: Not how many, just which ones. Sometimes you'll get cruft that'll hang around, but if it's likely to cause serious problems the system is fairly good at figuring it out (through the definition of some pretty serious chunks of package metadata -- what depends, conflicts, etc with what). That's a worry, actually. I seem to have a knack for finding good, usable software that then gets abandoned. Because I like the usability of the older package I don't want to remove it; but it stands in the way of newer versions needed by other software. I suspect this problem will continue to exist as long as we continue to use shared objects instead of static linking. Pretty much. You can't completely get around it with static linking, though -- programs evolve over time, and as their interfaces change, anything that needs that program needs to evolve too (I'm thinking programs that call some other command line program to do some work, for example). Consensus on RH seems to be that the upgrade problem strongly exists for that. So I think I'll try Ubuntu - last time I tried to install a plain Debian (nine months ago), I gave up after I realised I still had another 200 hundred questions to answer about configuring the kernel, and if I changed my mind about an earlier question I'd suffer. Hahahaha. The newer installer is a lot better there, but for minimal-grilling installation, Ubuntu is pretty darn good. BTW, what approach do these upgradable distros take to installing new kernels? I.e. keeping the right modules available and matched to the kernel that's booting, and allowing older kernels to stay in the boot config? On Ubuntu, at least, the default install will install a dummy package called (for example) linux-686, which depends on the current version of the kernel suitable for use by a 686-class machine (currently something like linux-2.6.15-37-686). Each new release of Ubuntu will install a newer version of linux-686, which will, in turn, install a new real kernel package. I don't think there's any automatic cleanup of old kernel packages in an Ubuntu system, but it's not a major hassle as the new ones get booted by default, and if you need the old one because (for example) the new one locks up, you'll really love having a bunch of old kernels to flip through. Does Ubuntu allow the use of Lilo instead of Grub? Yes, but it's not the default option (and so you won't see it in the normal install process). You can certainly install it afterwards though if you want to, and I'm fairly certain that new kernels will get automatically detected and lilo rerun. Don't quote me on that, though -- it's been a while since I ran lilo (seriously, get used to grub, and you'll learn to really love it). - Matt -- For once, Microsoft wasn't exaggerating when they named it the 'Jet Engine' -- your data's the seagull. -- Chris Adams -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
You can do a custom install of Ubuntu (need to use the Alternative install ISO now) and only select LILO, not Grub. I did this has I have a few systems Grub doesnt work on and a few other Grub borks on. Nothing beats good ol' reliable LILO -- Regards David Ward Matthew Palmer wrote: On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 03:17:28PM +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 13 Jun, Matthew Palmer wrote: I wouldn't say that it can't fail, but I can't think of too many upgrades of Debian or Ubuntu boxes where it's completely done itself in, and I've done some pretty crazy stuff over the years -- custom packages, mixing releases, that sort of thing. On the other hand, I have seen some people who've managed to make a complete dog's breakfast of their systems such that the system won't upgrade, but I think that's more PEBKAC than PEID. That seems to be the consensus. (No one has volunteered any serious problems in upgrading a Debian system.) Though Billy Kwong noted that it depended a bit on how many packages you have installed: Not "how many", just "which ones". Sometimes you'll get cruft that'll hang around, but if it's likely to cause serious problems the system is fairly good at figuring it out (through the definition of some pretty serious chunks of package metadata -- what depends, conflicts, etc with what). That's a worry, actually. I seem to have a knack for finding good, usable software that then gets abandoned. Because I like the usability of the older package I don't want to remove it; but it stands in the way of newer versions needed by other software. I suspect this problem will continue to exist as long as we continue to use shared objects instead of static linking. Pretty much. You can't completely get around it with static linking, though -- programs evolve over time, and as their interfaces change, anything that needs that program needs to evolve too (I'm thinking programs that call some other command line program to do some work, for example). Consensus on RH seems to be that the upgrade problem strongly exists for that. So I think I'll try Ubuntu - last time I tried to install a plain Debian (nine months ago), I gave up after I realised I still had another 200 hundred questions to answer about configuring the kernel, and if I changed my mind about an earlier question I'd suffer. Hahahaha. The newer installer is a lot better there, but for minimal-grilling installation, Ubuntu is pretty darn good. BTW, what approach do these upgradable distros take to installing new kernels? I.e. keeping the right modules available and matched to the kernel that's booting, and allowing older kernels to stay in the boot config? On Ubuntu, at least, the default install will install a dummy package called (for example) linux-686, which depends on the current version of the kernel suitable for use by a 686-class machine (currently something like linux-2.6.15-37-686). Each new release of Ubuntu will install a newer version of linux-686, which will, in turn, install a new "real" kernel package. I don't think there's any automatic cleanup of old kernel packages in an Ubuntu system, but it's not a major hassle as the new ones get booted by default, and if you need the old one because (for example) the new one locks up, you'll really love having a bunch of old kernels to flip through. Does Ubuntu allow the use of Lilo instead of Grub? Yes, but it's not the default option (and so you won't see it in the normal install process). You can certainly install it afterwards though if you want to, and I'm fairly certain that new kernels will get automatically detected and lilo rerun. Don't quote me on that, though -- it's been a while since I ran lilo (seriously, get used to grub, and you'll learn to really love it). - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Tue, 2006-06-13 at 17:40 +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 03:17:28PM +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW, what approach do these upgradable distros take to installing new kernels? I.e. keeping the right modules available and matched to the kernel that's booting, and allowing older kernels to stay in the boot config? On Ubuntu, at least, the default install will install a dummy package called (for example) linux-686, which depends on the current version of the kernel suitable for use by a 686-class machine (currently something like linux-2.6.15-37-686). Each new release of Ubuntu will install a newer version of linux-686, which will, in turn, install a new real kernel package. I don't think there's any automatic cleanup of old kernel packages in an Ubuntu system, but it's not a major hassle as the new ones get booted by default, and if you need the old one because (for example) the new one locks up, you'll really love having a bunch of old kernels to flip through. This is how debian works as well. The meta package always depends on the most recent kernel version, and there's no coflicts statements or, as far as I'm aware, no standard way of cleaning up older versions. So kernels tend to accumulate, especially on machines that track the development branch of your chosen distro. As Matt says, the newest version is the one which boots by default. grub gives you a menu containing every installed kernel, and lilo has two entries; Linux, which boots the newest kernel, and LinuxOLD, which boots the second most recently installed kernel package. Does Ubuntu allow the use of Lilo instead of Grub? Yes, but it's not the default option (and so you won't see it in the normal install process). You can certainly install it afterwards though if you want to, and I'm fairly certain that new kernels will get automatically detected and lilo rerun. Yeah, lilo's still fully supported in debian and friends. The kernel package updates symlinks and reruns lilo during postinst. As long as you don't mess too much with the image specific options in lilo.conf, everything Just Works. -- Pete -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
You can use genkernel (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/genkernel.xml) in gentoo to automatically generate the configs, compile and install the kernel in gentoo (although i prefer to roll my own), debian has packages with the updated kernels which you can install, or you can install the source files and roll your own. In case you haven't noticed, one of the good things about gentoo is its documentation. On 6/13/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW, what approach do these upgradable distros take to installing new kernels? I.e. keeping the right modules available and matched to the kernel that's booting, and allowing older kernels to stay in the boot config? -- Menno Schaaf aka ginji irc.austnet.org #gentoo #linux-help -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Wednesday 14 June 2006 06:48, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You can do a custom install of Ubuntu (need to use the Alternative install ISO now) and only select LILO, not Grub. I did this has I have a few systems Grub doesnt work on and a few other Grub borks on. Nothing beats good ol' reliable LILO Until it won't do what you want (install) and with some hand holding grub WILL and after a time, or a few times, you fall in love with it. Nothing is better than grub. Lilo is better than nothing. ergo lilo is better than grub smile James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
[Anyone who plans on crying about my recommendation of a specific distro can feel free to provide an alternative -- a question was asked, I'm giving an answer] On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 01:33:47PM +1000, Luke Kendall wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). Wise people still routinely advise Install the new system on a spare partition, and switch over when it's properly installed and configured. I've never had to do that with my Debian/Ubuntu boxes -- I've upgraded one machine from Woody (Debian 3.0), to Sarge (Debian 3.1), to Hoary (Ubuntu 5.04), and I'm about to upgrade it to Dapper (Ubuntu 6.06 LTS) via Breezy (Ubuntu 5.10) sometime. I've already done one workstation (with some fairly customised GNOME config) from Sarge to Dapper via Hoary and Breezy, so I know it can be done. There was effectively zero breakage on that whole upgrade path (I had to tweak the Eclipse config to use Real Java, and readjust the sound volume to a reasonable default -- about 5 minutes work all told). The problem with this is that if you've tweaked things so that sendmail is running nicely, and you have all the RealPlayer and Flash 7 and innumerable video codecs installed, and your soundcard working well and the DVD burner (and TV card?) etc. etc. all working well - then you have to do all this work afresh on the new system, and that can take days. Which is why you use a distro which actually respects your configuration files, or else use a configuration management system to apply all of your settings whenever they go away (which, for a single home workstation, is what we call Massive Overkill). So: does anyone know of a Linux distro that is so easily managed and so well structured, that not only can you easily update all your packages (via apt or yum or whatever), but you can even upgrade the whole distro, 99.99% reliably? Debian and Ubuntu both have this capability. I know people who have gone through 3 or 4 releases of Debian without a reinstall. I've got one machine under my nominal control which is now 3 releases behind the latest Ubuntu, and I have no intention of reinstalling it from scratch when I get around to upgrading it -- I intend to simply upgrade to each successive release to bring it up to date. - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 01:45:42PM +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 13 Jun, luke wrote: AFAIK, no Linux distro is considered quite safe to upgrade from one release to the next (e.g. from SuSE 9.2 to SuSE 10.0, or FC 4 to FC 5). I turned up this discussion about this very topic: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/12/14/152237 in which numerous respondents say that Debian and Gentoo and Mandrake (and Arch Linux) can all have the distro itself upgraded. So, a question for the Debian, Gentoo etc. users: have any of you have had a problem when you tried to get the system to upgrade itself from an older release (e.g. Debian 3.0 to 3.1)? Or does it always work perfectly smoothly? I wouldn't say that it can't fail, but I can't think of too many upgrades of Debian or Ubuntu boxes where it's completely done itself in, and I've done some pretty crazy stuff over the years -- custom packages, mixing releases, that sort of thing. On the other hand, I have seen some people who've managed to make a complete dog's breakfast of their systems such that the system won't upgrade, but I think that's more PEBKAC than PEID. - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 02:24:17PM +1000, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Debian is similarly easily upgradable, but all my machines run testing and therefore never need anything like a full upgrade. Instead you just get to dist-upgrade every couple of weeks. What fun! I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain. -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp Hahahaha -- That's going straight to the pool room! - Matt -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
Matthew Palmer wrote: I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain. -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp Erik Naggum is a genious. For proof see this collection of quotes (and flames) from him: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ErikNaggumQuotes His thoughts on XML and C++ (links on that page) are enlightening. Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo +---+ Do I do everything in C++ and teach a course in advanced swearing? -- David Beazley at IPC8, on choosing a language for teaching -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: Is there a truly upgradable Linux distro?
On 13 Jun, Matthew Palmer wrote: I wouldn't say that it can't fail, but I can't think of too many upgrades of Debian or Ubuntu boxes where it's completely done itself in, and I've done some pretty crazy stuff over the years -- custom packages, mixing releases, that sort of thing. On the other hand, I have seen some people who've managed to make a complete dog's breakfast of their systems such that the system won't upgrade, but I think that's more PEBKAC than PEID. That seems to be the consensus. (No one has volunteered any serious problems in upgrading a Debian system.) Though Billy Kwong noted that it depended a bit on how many packages you have installed: With Debian, it depends on the packages you have installed. Often times there will be old packages that would prevent a smmooth dist-upgrade, but they can be resolved quite easily (remove the old offending package first). Normally apt or dpkg would tell you how to resolve such problem if it exists. That's a worry, actually. I seem to have a knack for finding good, usable software that then gets abandoned. Because I like the usability of the older package I don't want to remove it; but it stands in the way of newer versions needed by other software. I suspect this problem will continue to exist as long as we continue to use shared objects instead of static linking. On the subject of Gentoo, I confess I had a bad experience with it two years ago because it would happily try to install packages with conflicting dependencies - e.g. I requested Jack in the USE options and the system couldn't install due to conflicts between OSS and Alsa or something. This seemed a bit of a design flaw. (For those interested, Menno Schaaf pointed me at how gentoo upgrading works: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-upgrading.xml) Consensus on RH seems to be that the upgrade problem strongly exists for that. So I think I'll try Ubuntu - last time I tried to install a plain Debian (nine months ago), I gave up after I realised I still had another 200 hundred questions to answer about configuring the kernel, and if I changed my mind about an earlier question I'd suffer. BTW, what approach do these upgradable distros take to installing new kernels? I.e. keeping the right modules available and matched to the kernel that's booting, and allowing older kernels to stay in the boot config? Does Ubuntu allow the use of Lilo instead of Grub? Thanks for all the replies, on and off the list, BTW. luke -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
