Fedora Core 1 upgrade to...?
 

I have been given a VM with Fedora Core 1 and was told I cannot reinstall the OS, only upgrade it. I have been scratching my head over it, but nothing seems to work. I tried up2date (dead repos), yum upgrade (which apparently does not what I thought it), and the Fedora Core 2 DVD iso (which only lets me install packages, and not actually upgrade the OS??).

How can I attempt an upgrade?

You won't get far. The repositories are dead.

The only way to upgrade it is to reinstall it.

Part of the problem you would hit (even if you locate archived repositories) is that the RPM database gets reformatted around Fedora 9/10 (thus making it very difficult to update - many failed). Second, other drastic changes to the system made updates a bit dicy (F14 to F15 did not go well, and F16 changed things again). Between F16 and F20 the UID allocations changed from starting at 500, to starting at 1000. And some of the UIDs (and GIDs) between 500 and 1000 are now used for some of the system services (polkitd, a new service, uses 995, another new one cockpit-ws uses 994, the new time service chrony uses 998, and there are a others).

The system itself doesn't use grub any more (now referred to as "grub legacy"), and uses grub2.
One additional note: Many of the Linux distributions are gradually phasing out 32 bit support, or supporting 32 bit after getting 64 bit configurations working. Based on the age of your Fedora version, I would believe that the VM is only 32bit capable. Fedora still has a 32 bit repository, but it is relegated to a "Other Downloads"...

Fedora Core 1 was a general distribution - server/workstation. The current Fedora (21) has this split up into workstation, server, cloud. The only real difference between them is what is considered the default set of layered package sets. You can still install workstation software on either server or cloud (and vice versa) - it just isn't done by default.

One additional thing - Fedora takes up a good bit more disk space than it used to. My current VMs use a 20GB storage allocation for the system. The boot partition alone has a minimum size of 600MB
(and IMO, should be 1 GB to allow you save more versions of the boot system, it is also used for certain update procedures that save rpms there temporarily there; having it too small means the update fails). A more minimal install than mine (I tend to throw in multiple desktops, development, and server software) would need about 10GB (actual use might be as low as 4-5GB).

What follows depends entirely on the context of the word "upgrade" in your organization. This is NOT a recommendation.

Many organizations use the word upgrade to mean "replace what exists with the newer version of the same equipment". In your case, this might mean "do not replace the VM", rather than "do not install the newer software".

Now taking this step does mean that the list of currently installed packages will need to be checked against the new list. A number of packages have been dropped - replaced by new packages (naturally with different names) to cover the same functions. In some cases, the functions were split into multiple packages. I believe FC1 had all the libraries installed for development, even if you weren't doing development, now there are separate packages for such, and a LOT more options for developers, such as Eclipse IDE; new languages.

And note - how easy/well some things can be installed will depend on the amount of disk space available.

Fedora Core 1 was released over 12 years ago and is not likely to work well if at all on a newer computer and obviously, the problems stated in the post above apply.

There has never been a good way to upgrade most linux until recently. Even now many people still just load new version.

It may be possible to find a mirror that has such versions.

There is a list (but I've never used archived repositories - so you might have to build your own repository from the packages)

https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/

And I'm not even sure how valid these are... when I look at the contents it just seems to loop back to itself...

well you are up the proverbial " up ( censored) creek without a paddle"

you can NOT !!!!

you can ONLY!!! reinstall and use the current Fedora 21

fedora1 is 10+ years and 20 versions out of date

and to add problems
on fedora BEFORE fedora 8 there was NEVER a way to upgrade in plase

"pre-upgrade" helped sometimes --BUT i NEVER!!!!!! had a upgrade work NEVER!!!
now with the NEW "fedup"
that should
BUT for the antique fedora1
NO!!

You don't, and you don't even attempt it.

Honestly, if this is for a client/job, then just walk away. You are in a no-win situation, if the people you're working with want to work with a version of an OS that is TWENTY (20) versions out of date. There is no 'upgrade'...there is 'replace'. If they insist, and won't listen to reason (and this is your employer), then you need to polish off your resume, and start looking for a new job. Let such things fail without YOU being involved.

The better course of action is to ask a few things:

• WHY they want to keep it. Any reasons of "We only want to work with version xxx of program" are immediately discarded. They are invalid..they need to learn the new versions, period.
• What services are running on the box? ANY services are either still available or have been replaced with newer ones that do the same things. Since this box is running now, in a VM, you are in a PERFECT spot to load a current OS, and configure the services and test them. Config files can be copied.

"Config files can be copied."

Not many. nearly all the configuration files have changed format and require more information than what was recorded for FC1.

Some of this is due to things changing names. FC1 had fixed device/network names for instance. Current Fedora doesn't. You can't use an old fstab as the device names may not match (though with a VM and a single disk they really ought to). In FC1 you used "/dev/hda1, /dev/hda2...". These are gone. The IDE subsystem has been merged with the SCSI subsystem - thus they would now be /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2... On some systems the hda references can still exist though (it depends on the VM), and there are new ones (vhd) that work faster for VMs though they don't exist outside the VM (and it depends on which VM support the host is using too).

In the case of networks, VMs normally only have one (eth0), but it depends on the VM support as to what the emulation actually is, and that might change the name (I would expect it to be eth0, but I have also seen vibr0 - the name for a virtual bridge network device).

I'm sorry to hear that ;-p Get a Fedora 21 Vmware / Virtualbox image here: http://www.osboxes.org/fedora/

Hey, guys. Thanks for responses! Just as an exercise... is there a way to upgrade to FC2, for example? I found archived repos for FC: http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pu...ra/linux/core/

"Red Hat Network Alert Notification Tool" (long name...) says there is only an update to kernel available, but when I actually launch up2date, it says there are no updates available... =/ I updated the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources file for up2date. Now, I am just curious...

I read here that FC1->FC2 should be done using anaconda. What does that mean? Isn't anaconda just the regular installer that comes on the iso DVD? That didn't let me upgrade either.

I guess what I am wondering is... how DID people upgrade FC1 back in the day?

Please, stop where you are and consider what you're doing.

FC2 is STILL ANCIENT, and should not be used. Even *IF* (and IF is in big letters here), you could somehow manage to do an upgrade to FC2...so what? It's still incredibly insecure, buggy, and outdated. That's like trading in your 1972 Gremlin for a 1974 Pacer...yes, it's newer, but so what? And where does it end? Going to go from FC2 to FC3? All the way to 21?? No, sorry...things are going to break, period. As noted, config file types/syntax may have changed, and you'll have to re-install/reconfigure services anyway. Putting this off is absolutely pointless.

If this is a server, it's even MORE pointless, since even if you do a fresh install of the latest Fedora, it'll be replaced in six months...that's what a development distro is. Load a server-grade distro like CentOS, or Ubuntu LTS, which has a very long term-of-life, with good support. Migrate what you need to, and do the job right. Doing it half-way for no good reason is a waste of time.

As I said, now I am just curious...

now if say this was oh Debian5.? stable you might be able to run
and you would have had a good chance of the debian6 upgrade working
IF IT WAS DEBIAN STABLE !!!!!!

Fedora however WAS NEVER !!! stable
fedora by definition was the newest TESTING beta code

fedora even went SO FAR!!! as to include TESTING ONLY beta1 versions of gcc
( NOT even the stable but the TESTING versions )

upgrading from one version to the next NEVER WORKED WELL
NEVER

now
Fedora 21 to 22 using " fedup " might
but i would NOT place a bet on it working correctly

fedora is well fedora
use the newest of the new
push the envelope PAST the breaking point
fix the OS
repush it
refix
rebreak
refix

and so on ........

Upgrades were never an offical way. It has about a zero chance of working. That assumes someone wrote a way to do it back then.

What are you trying to do and why? As others note, FC2 is no better for all practical uses.

There are many older distros that are still somewhat usable.

There are many pre-made virtual machines (appliances) available to download and run.

I ran Fedora from FC1 on and especially the early releases introduced lots of changes which gave it a bad rep (esp. with those who didn't want to tinker under the hood). Things got better up until around 15 / 18 (IIRC) which introduced Systemd, the / -> /usr layout change and other changes that warranted a clean install. I think (I didn't really keep a log of things) the two unsupported upgrade methods and 'fedup' worked kind of well for me from 17 on, so usually I only keep backups of MBR, /home, /etc, /root and /usr/local (mind you, these are more or less non-critical systems) and then take 2 to 4 hrs to reconcile configs and learn about new features and technology previews.

Long story short: yes, you can run FC-%{whatever} but you must not expose it to any public network nor burden us with any support questions, period. From experience I wouldn't suggest "upgrading" any old version of Fedora Core or Fedora below 18 but just install cleanly. Note this should in no way be mistaken for any endorsement or encouragement to run anything other than the current release. Not only will you be running unsupported, unmaintained software but also upstream and the Fedora community will not benefit from any bug reports that you as good Fedora user should file to help make it better.