[gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[Jon Hardcastle]

Hi all, 

I have a gentoo circa 2008 install that i have pretty much the bare minimal to keep up to date... i now have the problem that i need to upgrade mdadm, lvm and probably a few other bits and pieces. This machine is used almost exclusively as a windows file server.

I am getting blocks all over the show and lots of applications needs reinstalling/upgradining on a emerge world. i have also had problems getting the kernel to do what it needs to do a i installed the minimal when i started..

So i am wondering... it is easier to try and upgrade it, or as i have 2 raid 1 drives as the operating system drives and the rest of the drives are pure data, i can disconnect one and wipe the other reinstall from fresh as a degraded raid 1 and when i know we are good to go, wipe the disconnected drive and add to the array to resync and go from there? 


-----------------------
N: Jon Hardcastle
E: Jon@eHardcastle.com
'Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.'

***********
Please note, I am phasing out jd_hardcastle AT yahoo.com and replacing it with jon AT eHardcastle.com
***********

-----------------------


     

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[Dale]

Jon Hardcastle wrote:
> Hi all, 
>
> I have a gentoo circa 2008 install that i have pretty much the bare minimal to keep up to date... i now have the problem that i need to upgrade mdadm, lvm and probably a few other bits and pieces. This machine is used almost exclusively as a windows file server.
>
> I am getting blocks all over the show and lots of applications needs reinstalling/upgradining on a emerge world. i have also had problems getting the kernel to do what it needs to do a i installed the minimal when i started..
>
> So i am wondering... it is easier to try and upgrade it, or as i have 2 raid 1 drives as the operating system drives and the rest of the drives are pure data, i can disconnect one and wipe the other reinstall from fresh as a degraded raid 1 and when i know we are good to go, wipe the disconnected drive and add to the array to resync and go from there? 
>
>
> -----------------------
> N: Jon Hardcastle
> E: Jon@eHardcastle.com
> 'Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.'
>
> ***********
> Please note, I am phasing out jd_hardcastle AT yahoo.com and replacing it with jon AT eHardcastle.com
> ***********
>
> -----------------------
>   

I don't know much about what all you have installed but I suspect that a 
fresh start would be easier.  It may even be faster as well.  Just save 
your world file and the things you need in /etc.  Also, save anything 
else you may have configured elsewhere.  I also save my /root since I 
store some scripts and such there. 

My $0.02 worth.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[bn]

Jon Hardcastle ha scritto:
> Hi all, 
> 
> I have a gentoo circa 2008 install that i have pretty much the bare minimal to keep up to date... i now have the problem that i need to upgrade mdadm, lvm and probably a few other bits and pieces. This machine is used almost exclusively as a windows file server.
> 
> I am getting blocks all over the show and lots of applications needs reinstalling/upgradining on a emerge world. i have also had problems getting the kernel to do what it needs to do a i installed the minimal when i started..
> 
> So i am wondering... it is easier to try and upgrade it, or as i have 2 raid 1 drives as the operating system drives and the rest of the drives are pure data, i can disconnect one and wipe the other reinstall from fresh as a degraded raid 1 and when i know we are good to go, wipe the disconnected drive and add to the array to resync and go from there? 

Well, I am updating my desktop system which was in pretty the same
conditions (kernel, xorg, etc. being stuck since beginning of 2008) and
I must say that, while long and not without bumps, the upgrade has been
not as bad as I thought. Expect to use a week of your time, however -I
still haven't finished even if most critical stuff (kernel, xorg, new
kde) is more or less in place.

Reinstalling maybe is cleaner, but I am unsure it will take less time,
unless you carefully copy your /etc and your user configuration files,
and then you remember why you did what, etc. when putting them back.

m.

> 
> -----------------------
> N: Jon Hardcastle
> E: Jon@eHardcastle.com
> 'Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.'
> 
> ***********
> Please note, I am phasing out jd_hardcastle AT yahoo.com and replacing it with jon AT eHardcastle.com
> ***********
> 
> -----------------------
> 
> 
>       
> 
> 

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 27 December 2009 21:46:23 Jon Hardcastle wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I have a gentoo circa 2008 install that i have pretty much the bare minimal
>  to keep up to date... i now have the problem that i need to upgrade mdadm,
>  lvm and probably a few other bits and pieces. This machine is used almost
>  exclusively as a windows file server.
> 
> I am getting blocks all over the show and lots of applications needs
>  reinstalling/upgradining on a emerge world. i have also had problems
>  getting the kernel to do what it needs to do a i installed the minimal
>  when i started..
> 
> So i am wondering... it is easier to try and upgrade it, or as i have 2
>  raid 1 drives as the operating system drives and the rest of the drives
>  are pure data, i can disconnect one and wipe the other reinstall from
>  fresh as a degraded raid 1 and when i know we are good to go, wipe the
>  disconnected drive and add to the array to resync and go from there?

the mdadm/lvm blocks are easy to fix, just unmerge mdadm and merge lvm.

Then upgrade portage to latest *masked* version (it's stable and trouble-free 
despite the classification), and most of the remaining blockers should be 
resolved automatically by portage. Depending on what remains, you may or may 
not decide to proceed with an upgrade as opposed to a reinstall.

But it's only one year back, shouldn't give too much trouble on a minimalist 
system. Off the top of my head, I can only really think of the monolithic to 
split ebuild samba split


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[Jon Hardcastle]

--- On Sun, 27/12/09, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Date: Sunday, 27 December, 2009, 22:24
> On Sunday 27 December 2009 21:46:23
> Jon Hardcastle wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I have a gentoo circa 2008 install that i have pretty
> much the bare minimal
> >  to keep up to date... i now have the problem
> that i need to upgrade mdadm,
> >  lvm and probably a few other bits and pieces.
> This machine is used almost
> >  exclusively as a windows file server.
> > 
> > I am getting blocks all over the show and lots of
> applications needs
> >  reinstalling/upgradining on a emerge world. i
> have also had problems
> >  getting the kernel to do what it needs to do a i
> installed the minimal
> >  when i started..
> > 
> > So i am wondering... it is easier to try and upgrade
> it, or as i have 2
> >  raid 1 drives as the operating system drives and
> the rest of the drives
> >  are pure data, i can disconnect one and wipe the
> other reinstall from
> >  fresh as a degraded raid 1 and when i know we
> are good to go, wipe the
> >  disconnected drive and add to the array to
> resync and go from there?
> 
> the mdadm/lvm blocks are easy to fix, just unmerge mdadm
> and merge lvm.
> 
> Then upgrade portage to latest *masked* version (it's
> stable and trouble-free 
> despite the classification), and most of the remaining
> blockers should be 
> resolved automatically by portage. Depending on what
> remains, you may or may 
> not decide to proceed with an upgrade as opposed to a
> reinstall.
> 
> But it's only one year back, shouldn't give too much
> trouble on a minimalist 
> system. Off the top of my head, I can only really think of
> the monolithic to 
> split ebuild samba split
> 
> 
> -- 
> alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
> 
> 

I absolutely depend on mdadm/lvm (which i believe require in some way devicemapper and udev) and these are the biggest things i am worried about changing. Does anyone have any experience here? I am assuming that unmerging and remerging should be relatively problem free? If i can get these bad boys upto date that is all i really care about...

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 29 December 2009 11:41:51 Jon Hardcastle wrote:
> I absolutely depend on mdadm/lvm (which i believe require in some way
>  devicemapper and udev) and these are the biggest things i am worried about
>  changing. Does anyone have any experience here? I am assuming that
>  unmerging and remerging should be relatively problem free? If i can get
>  these bad boys upto date that is all i really care about...
> 

All that happened is that some functionality in mdadm was moved into lvm2 as 
that was the major user of that functionality. IIRC disk encryption was the 
other user.

All lvm users here with up to date systems already did this step without 
trouble, so you can proceed as usual.

As you are modifying some low level vital functionality, the usual precautions 
will apply: ensure that no-one reboots the machine while you are doing this, 
notebook batteries must not die in the middle, no power outages. And do 
everything in a single terminal session.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrade or start over..

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:41:51 -0800 (PST), Jon Hardcastle wrote:

> I absolutely depend on mdadm/lvm (which i believe require in some way
> devicemapper and udev) and these are the biggest things i am worried
> about changing. Does anyone have any experience here? I am assuming
> that unmerging and remerging should be relatively problem free? If i
> can get these bad boys upto date that is all i really care about...

The lvm and mdadm packages are the user space utilities used to setup
devices. Removing them won't stop your existing devices from working. As
long as you r-emerge the new versions before rebooting, you should be
fine. Make sure you quickpkg the old versions before removing, in case the
new emerge fails for some reason. The worst case, if it crashes between
unmerge and merge, is that you'll have to use a live CD and chroot to
install them.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

I used to live in the real world, but I got evicted.

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