Hi all,

I have RH 8 currently installed. However, I later compiled my own kernel and installed it. Everything works fine.

The RH 'up2date' agent keeps saying that I didn't install the kernel using rpms and could cause incompatibilities. I safely ignore this msg.

The question is: If I want to upgrade my distro to RH 9, what sort of problems I may have to face. Or, is it smooth as installing a distro directly?
Do I need to format the HDD again, in which case I have to loose data, and I don't want it.

All help is appreciated.

Hi.

I'm running RedHat 9 with a custom kernel - make sure you 'choose individual packages' when you do the upgrade and tell the installer not to install the kernel or kernel source, and you should be fine.

Either that, or do the upgrade, and then recompile your kernel. (That's what I did when upgrading from 7.2 to 9)

Dave

Hi again.

It's also possible to fool the rpm system into thinking you've got an rpm installed when you haven't.

Say you've got the 2.4.21 kernel installed from source, if you download the 2.4.21 kernel rpm (does this exist???) and do

# rpm -ivh --justdb kernel-2.4.21.rpm

it will update the database and that's what RPM will think you have.

I would probably watch this if you're doing upgrades that involve upgrading the kernel, as the system may not realise what's going on and overwrite your customised kernel thinking it's a normal rpm installed one. It does help when you're just upgrading packages yourself, as rpm doesn't complain about not having the appropriate kernel installed.

Just a thought.

Dave

I should have been little specific in my prev post. The reason I want to upgrade to RH 9 is two fold. One, I want the latest distro. And, the second, I want to move away from the custom compiled kernel.

Though I compiled the kernel, it's just for the kicks, and not really doing anything extra-ordinary.

The only concern is, if I have to format the HDD (while upgrading to RH9) then I will loose my data, which I don't want to happen.

So, the question is "is the transition straight-forward, or it's just like starting everything from scratch?"

Thanks for all the help.

Now, for this just give the options as upgrade while installing the RH9, and it takes care of all the details. And yes, the kernel will be replaced.

Thanks, one down and here comes the next.

Is it going to force me to repartition and format HDD? Thanks once again

No. There's options to not format and retain data, so you should be OK.

Dave

Thank you one and all. I will post my experiences soon.

/me puts on sensible hat...

Like your mother always said, "Remember to keep backups of all your important data - don't come crying to me if it all goes missing when you re-install".

Well, she never actually said that, but I'm sure she would have.

Dave