[mythtv-users] upgrading an apt-get based FC system, big troubles, need help

Franco mythtv at email.it
Fri Jun 9 04:12:37 UTC 2006


Hi,

I've already sent this question privately to Jarod and got no answer.
Then I posted it to this list and got no answer again.
I can't understand if the question is too dumb, so nobody wants
to write obvious things, or it is too difficult and nobody
knows the answer. I can't believe it's the second case, as I know
lots of people uses apt-get due to initial version of Jarod's howto,
but I can't believe there isn't a known solution to the issue, either,
otherewise there would be MANY people out there experiencing 
same amount of huge troboule as me every time they upgrade 
the system, so... I believe there IS a well known solution,
please tell me or point me to the appropriate resource! :-)

--------- the issue: ------------

Since FC2, I followed Jarod's HOWTO to set up my mytboxes
(and: thanks Jarod, without your guide I wouldn't have
been able to get a working mythbox)

I installed apt-get, added the extra repositories needed,
etc. etc.  I liked it and even began to use apt-get
on non-Myth boxes, both at home and at work, for regular 
update and maintenaince of severals PCs.

Problem is, when I want to update from a FC release to
the next one (upgrade, not reinstall everythinng from scratch).

Every time I attemped it, I ended with a seriously broken machine,
with inconsistent package versions mixed together, where
even the apt "kickstart" package from Axel's site wouldn't work.

I believe this is because the "update" procedure on the CD
just ignores the packages coming from the extra repositories,
so for example after upgrading from FC3 to FC4,
there were still lots and lots of FC3 rpms installed in the system
(including base packages), which however had more recent versions 
of .so libraries than the ones on the CD, resulting in an 
unoperable system where even rpm istelf couldn't be executed 
due to conflicting versions of executables and dynamic libraries.
And you know, if rpm doesn't work, it's hard to fix the system. 
This happened on all the machines I tried to upgrade.

This should be, however, a problem common to all who
followed Jarod's HOWTO to setup their mythboxes, so I believe
it should be a FAQ and there should be a known workaround
of procedure to follow: can you point me to any resoure
explaining how to do it?

More specifically, I now would like to upgrade a number 
of boxes from FC4 to FC5 but I'm really scared to spend
the same amount of sleepless nights trying to 
fix machines that won't boot anymore, as I did
when moving from FC3 to FC4 (and also from FC2 to FC3).
My boxes are still seriously broken after the FC3->FC4
upgrade. I managed to recover basic functionality, 
but there are still several things that don't work as they 
should... my wish would be the upgrade to FC5 would fix
things, rather than breaking them more... 

Thanks,
Franco



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