First off, what I'd like to do is somehow install a package which, upon reboot will start upgrading my machine over the 'net. Or download a small(~50 mb) ISO which i can boot off of to start the upgrade. I'm positive debian has this, but does it exist for Fedora?

In my eyes, it shouldn't be necessary to get an ISO. I have a fully configured FC3 machine and I'm just upgrading. A large-ish RPM would do fine. This would also be an excercise for when FC5 comes out.

I just cant find any way to do this. Everything I've read says just download disc 1 of fc4. There should be a way to do this with no ISO.

I also concede a small possibility that it cannot be done and I'll end up downloading FC4D1. I'd like to say I gave it my all..or possibly inspire someone to create such a thing!

Thanks,

Dave

Read this. You can perform an upgrade via yum.

Based on personal experience, I think doing fedora version upgrades is a bad idea and that you will be happier with a fresh install. But if you want to do a version upgrade, then the yum approach is the best one.

But back to your initial question, you can use the Fedora rescuecd.iso (85MiB) to do a net install/upgrade, somewhat like you can use the Debian netinst.iso (140MiB) to do a net install.

Boot with the rescue cd using “linux askmethod” (i.e., boot: linux askmethod) instead of the default (boot: linux rescue) and select the source you wish to use (http, ftp, cd, etc.). After that, it looks like a regular CD/DVD-based FC4 installation. If it detects your current installation as a version that can be upgraded, then you can proceed with the upgrade, just like you would using the 4 CDs or DVD.

The upgraded system will be no better or worse than one upgraded from optical media.

One big difference between netinst.iso and rescuecd.iso is that netinst.iso installs the base system from the CD before proceeding with the addition of packages, whereas the rescuecd.iso just starts the Anaconda installer.

I agree. Back up your stuff. I totaly screwed the yum install when I went from FC3 to FC4. Upgrading will take as much time as having to download the iso images. In any case give it a try and get back to us when succeed or crash and burn.

Thanks for the advice. The YUM method seems to be exactly what i was looking for. I'll give it a shot this weekend.