rh_upgrade_dancing_plus_rh70_complications

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Subject: RE: Redhat-list digest, Vol 1 #650 - 15 msgs
From: Thornton Prime <thornton@yoyoweb.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 09:09:02 -0800 (PST)

On Thu, 30 Nov 2000, John N. Alegre wrote:

> Is there anyone who has taken RedHat 6.2 rpm and glibc to the 7.0 level using
> rpm.  If so please share the way you did it.  It might be necessary to build
> and install glibc from the tarball, upgrade rpm, remove the tarball files and
> then upgrade glibc with the rpm.

I'm coming into this late, but from the above paragraph I'd have to
answer no, I don't think anyone has done this, for two reasons that I can
think of immediately.

First, RedHat 7.0 uses rpm 4.0.x which uses a new database format. You can
upgrade your rpm, but you will also need to upgrade a number of libraries
that it depends on, including the db library that the new rpm uses. If you
go to

  ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/rpm-4.0.x

You should find the packages necessary to do an upgrade from rpm 3.x to
rpm 4.x for RedHat 6.x. I have never tried this, so I can't testify to how
safe this is.


Your second problem is that glibc is the heart of the RedHat distribution.
Upgrading glibc from 2.1.x to 2.2.x without upgrading all the dependant
packages will have undesireable effects. The troubles you mention
between 5.2 and 6.x are probably a result of trying an upgrade from 2.0.x
to 2.1.x under similar circumstances.

Running 'rpm -q --whatrequires libc.so.6' will show you a list of all
the packages that *might* need to be upgraded. Upgrading any from that
list could require upgrading others. The net result is that you are
ultimately going to need to upgrade your entire installation from 6.x to
7.x.

[Note: actually running something on the order of

   rpm -q --whatrequires `rpm -q --provides glibc`

would be a more exact list of what depends on your existing glibc
installation. libc.so.6 isn't the only critical system file provided by
glibc. This line screws up because of the shell handling of the spaces and
stuff, but I'm sure with some shell magic you could generate a more precise
list.]

It pains me to point out that RedHat compiled the 7.0 glibc rpm against
kernel-2.4 headers, which further increases the likelihood of
incompatabilities.

Now I know that not *all* of the packages that 'rpm -w --whatdepends
/lib/libc.so.6' reports really need to be upgraded, but I don't think
anyone has documented which ones really do vs. which ones don't.


In short, if you want to play with the newer glibc 2.2 on a 6.2 install
and ou don't want to be dogged by 2.1 vs. 2.2 incompatabilities, I
recommend you DON'T use the rpm. The rpm will overwrite your existing
glibc and will break more things than anyone probably knows. If you can't
for whatever reason upgrade your system to 7.0, then I'd recommend
manually installing the source for the newer glibc and building it
being mindful to follow the instructions for installing multiple versions
of glibc on the same machine.

I'm not sure what your goals with the new glibc 2.2 are, but you might
also consider VMWare, userspace-linux, dual-booting or some other way of
making sure you have a complete and consistent glibc 2.2 system that won't
impact your glibc 2.1 system.

thornton

===

Subject: Re: Redhat-list digest, Vol 1 #650 - 15 msgs
From: Thomas Ribbrock <argathin@gmx.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 17:11:07 +0000

On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 10:19:03AM -0600, John N. Alegre wrote:
> Thank you Thomas!

I'm trying, I'm trying... ;-)


> Is there anyone who has taken RedHat 6.2 rpm and glibc to the 7.0 level using
> rpm.  If so please share the way you did it.  It might be necessary to build
> and install glibc from the tarball, upgrade rpm, remove the tarball files and
> then upgrade glibc with the rpm.

Hm... I hope I understand your problem correctly...
How about getting the SRPMs and running a "rpm --rebuild" on them?
At least with the rpm RPM, that should resolve the dependency on the
newer glibc and result in an installable rpm RPM - and from there you
should get things rolling. If that fails, you might need to edit the
spec file, but unless there's an explicit "Requires" in there, you
shouldn't have to.

===

Subject: Re: Chicken-and-egg - AGAIN
From: John Aldrich <john@chattanooga.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 10:10:00 -0500

On Thu, 30 Nov 2000, Thomas Ribbrock wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 02:54:16PM -0500, William Stearns wrote:
> > 	Simply do the upgrade, but upgrade them both at the same time
> > with:
> > 
> > rpm -Uvh glibc...rpm rpm...rpm
> 
> Careful with that one! I haven't read the full thread (in fact I never
> *got* the full thread - I only got about 20 mails on the list over the
> past 24h...), but this command has potential for desaster.
> The one thing you have to make certain is that the new version of rpm
> you're trying to install is *not* using a new database format - 'cause
> in that case a "rpm --rebuilddb" is needed to make things work properly,
> and the command you listed might cause problems.
> Such database format changes have happened a couple of times in the
> past, e.g. somewhere between rpm 2.x->3.x and as well 3.x->4.x, IIRC.
> 
This problem being discussed is on a RH 7 box, I think. In which
case, it's an upgrade from rpm 4 to an updated version of RPM 4.
However your cautionary words ARE something to keep in mind for
anyone trying to upgrade from rpm3.x to rpm4.x. :-)

===

Subject: RE: Redhat-list digest, Vol 1 #650 - 15 msgs
From: "John N. Alegre" <listhub@libros.andante.mn.org>
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 10:19:03 -0600 (CST)


On 30-Nov-00 Thomas Ribbrock <argathin@gmx.net> wrote:
> Message: 15
> Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 10:17:17 +0000
> From: Thomas Ribbrock <argathin@gmx.net>
> To: ML-redhat <redhat-list@redhat.com>
> Subject: Re: Chicken-and-egg - AGAIN
> Reply-To: redhat-list@redhat.com
> 
> On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 02:54:16PM -0500, William Stearns wrote:
>>      Simply do the upgrade, but upgrade them both at the same time
>> with:
>> 
>> rpm -Uvh glibc...rpm rpm...rpm
> 
> Careful with that one! I haven't read the full thread (in fact I never
> *got* the full thread - I only got about 20 mails on the list over the
> past 24h...), but this command has potential for desaster.
> The one thing you have to make certain is that the new version of rpm
> you're trying to install is *not* using a new database format - 'cause
> in that case a "rpm --rebuilddb" is needed to make things work properly,
> and the command you listed might cause problems.
> Such database format changes have happened a couple of times in the
> past, e.g. somewhere between rpm 2.x->3.x and as well 3.x->4.x, IIRC.

Thank you Thomas!

This is the exact reason I have been screaming "has anyone
actually used the fixes they are posting for this particular
problem".  

To summarize some of the solutions that are incorrect.

rpm -f is not the answer
rpm --nodeps is not the answer
using the interim version rpm 3.0.5 is not the answer

Now it is true that 

rpm "somepackage" "someotherpackage" "somelastpackage"

will work for packages that are mutually dependent.  But
when I tried this with rpm and glibc going from RedHat 5.2 >
6.0 the exact thing Thomas is pointing out happened and it
took me a week to get the system back to where it was to
begin with.

Is there anyone who has taken RedHat 6.2 rpm and glibc to
the 7.0 level using rpm.  If so please share the way you did
it.  It might be necessary to build and install glibc from
the tarball, upgrade rpm, remove the tarball files and then
upgrade glibc with the rpm.

===



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