[mythtv-users] upgrade backend from fc4 to fc9

[Joe]

Back when I was running Fedora upgrading was always problematic, even
between consecutive versions - so I always went with a clean
installation.  Since then I've switched to Ubuntu (Mythbuntu actually
for the dedicated boxes) and things are generally smoother.

> Probably the best way is to preserve /home, /etc/ and /var/lib/mysql (along
> with anything else you know you'll need to preserve), do a clean install,
> yum update, then start migrating things back.

To make this even easier, I would recommend physically removing the
FC4 hard disk and installing the new Fedora onto a separate disk, that
way you'll preserve the complete installation just in case you want to
revert back (as I have had to do occasionally).  After the new OS
installation, put the old disk into an external USB box (if you have
one) so you can copy important files to the new installation.

However I would *NOT* recommend blindly copying your old FC4 /etc
directory over the new FC9 /etc directory - the layout changes a
little with each release and you'll probably create more problems than
you solve.  The best way is to pick each config file that's important
to you and copy them individually to the new location.

Another thing I've found to be very helpful is to run the command 'rpm
-qa --queryformat "%{NAME}\n" > packages.fc4' BEFORE shutting down
your old system.  This produces a list of all installed packages (name
only / without version number).  You can then run the same command
after the new installation and "diff" the results.  This will quickly
tell you the packages you used to have installed but are missing from
the clean install.  Note that packages are renamed and obsoleted as
well, so not everything will match, but it's a simple way of getting
most of them.

Good luck!