RedHat 9 Updates (and CD) Options

[Owyn]

I thought I better get a local copy of all RH9 critical updates.

Reasons:
1)My up2date demo account was for another system and was coming up to it's first 60 day expiry.
2)I want to see if I can get the equivalent of the Mandrake Update CD working for RH9
3)I expect RedHat to close down access to these updates in the near future.

I decided to combine it with another practical experiment in ftp tools.

This time, "ncftp"

The initial process-------------------------------

# mkdir rhupdates
# cd rhupdates
# ncftp updates.redhat.com
ncftp> get -R 9
ncftp> bye

The questions---------------------------------
Should this work in principle?
What about in practice? Is there an apt-get or urpmi for RedHat?

[tranquilo]

Have you tried with wget? It works from this end...

http://www.redhat.com/apps/support/errata/
ftp://updates.redhat.com/9/en/os/
wget -cr ftp://updates.redhat.com/9/en/os/i386/

apt-get does exist for redhat, apt4rpm (I believe).

http://apt.freshrpms.net/
http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net/

tranquilo

[SonicDragon]

Are there other (non-official) mirrors you could download from? Would that help

[Owyn]

Have you tried with wget?  It works from this end...

http://www.redhat.com/apps/support/errata/
ftp://updates.redhat.com/9/en/os/
wget -cr ftp://updates.redhat.com/9/en/os/i386/

Yep. I knew it would work with wget. Just happened to be in a mood to experiment with other ftp tools.
Working. But I will probably stick with wget for the big jobs.

apt-get does exist for redhat, apt4rpm (I believe).

http://apt.freshrpms.net/
http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net/

tranquilo

Tx. Will give it a try after I install a minimal RH9 system on my test system. I blew away my prior RH9 install for Mdk91.

[Owyn]

Are there other (non-official) mirrors you could download from? Would that help   

Probably. But I thought I would start the process directly from RedHat. Getting clean 160KB from site, so should have everything downloaded soon.

[Owyn]

Apt4rpm brings the following features:

    * Support for multiple distributions/versions/architectures in a single apt repository.
    * "Atomic" switching from an old apt repository to the newly created one.
    * Analyzes the rpm packages in the rpm repository and creates a unified apt package name. This mechanism uses caching to speed up the creation of a subsequent created apt repository. The rpm name, version and architecture are stored seperately in the cache. This makes it possible to easily search for 1 particular rpm throughout the whole apt repository.
    * Can create signed repositories.
    * Can mirror download server directories after downloading the apt repository will be created.
    * Can be run without root priveledge.
    * If possible it will mark a package as a security update, and will put it in the "security" component of the apt repository.
    * Provides an example sources.list file for the "file:", "ftp://" and "http://" method.
    * The apt repository is created with links from the rpm repository. The rpm repository can have any format. Rpms can be filtered with accept/reject rules.
    * Creates seperated binary, patch and source rpms components automatically.
    * A single XML formatted config file
    * The existing apt repository component is preserved if the underlying rpm repository did not change. This prevents unneccessary downloads by the apt client and saves resources at the server.
    * The source-rpm apt components can be provided in a flat or noflat structure. Switching between those 2 can be performed without problem.
    * A most recent rpm list can be created for each component.
    * A contents list is created for the whole apt repository.

Looks great. Should do the trick.

[Owyn]

[owyn@TestMdk92 rhupdates]$ du
233M    ./9/en/os/SRPMS
27M  ./9/en/os/athlon
269M    ./9/en/os/i386
27M  ./9/en/os/i586
48M  ./9/en/os/i686
6.9M    ./9/en/os/noarch
610M    ./9/en/os
610M    ./9/en
610M    ./9
610M

Got everything (in updates) for RH9. Will fit nicely on a CD.

[quint]

Owyn,

Another fabulous idea/project!! Worked great!

Tranquilo,

Thank you, the "Apt4RPM" program is tremendous...it truly makes updating/upgrading RH and even Fedora, as concisely as Debian...fantastic!!

[tranquilo]

This is true. Apt-get does work very well... upgrading is very easy. I read that fedora also has something called yum, which is similar to apt-get. You will have to give us your fedora report


tranquilo

[Owyn]

Owyn,

Another fabulous idea/project!! Worked great!

Tranquilo,

Thank you, the "Apt4RPM" program is tremendous...it truly makes updating/upgrading RH and even Fedora, as concisely as Debian...fantastic!!

Quint:

You beat me to it.

I just finished installing RH9 and doing some checking on sound configuration. Checking in from RH9 before starting updates.

Did you go with a local copy or use the freshrpms repository?

Tranquilo:

The yum setups are also available via the configuration file links at your freshrpms link.

[teacher]

I am back in Fedora. I tried a dozen times to install RH and it would not install on my system. I tried every configuration I could think of but it just would not install so I went back and reinstalled Fedora, making sure I got all the packages I wanted in the initial install instead of the defaults. It crashed before every time I tried to add sndconfig or something like that so I made sure I installed it the first time.

It is now added into my lilo. It would not take my partitioning from Mandrake. Nor would it let me partition it. I ended up doing the autoconfig and it took 57 GB for /. I do believe I will be going back in Mandrake and resizing that one!

Did not find anything called Yum but it has "Up2Date" that goes in and checks for new packages. Nothing new yet according to that.

[tranquilo]

Have you seen this page yet?

Red Hat Linux 9: Red Hat Linux x86 Installation Guide
Appendix H. Additional Boot Options
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/R...h-bootopts.html

tranquilo

[Owyn]

I am back in Fedora.  I tried a dozen times to install RH and it would not install on my system.  I tried every configuration I could think of but it just would not install so I went back and reinstalled Fedora, making sure I got all the packages I wanted in the initial install instead of the defaults.    It crashed before every time I tried to add sndconfig or something like that so I made sure I installed it the first time.

It is now added into my lilo.  It would not take my partitioning from Mandrake.  Nor would it let me partition it.  I ended up doing the autoconfig and it took 57 GB for /.  I do believe I will be going back in Mandrake and resizing that one! 

Did not find anything called Yum but it has "Up2Date" that goes in and checks for new packages.  Nothing new yet according to that.

Does that mean I have to burn the ISOs now? .

Almost got to the point of getting RH9 properly set up.

PS: I decided to go the grub route for boot manager. Very simple to install and update master boot menu.

1)Install RH9 with grub to root of new RH9 partition.
2)At the first boot you will come back to your prior boot menu. Let it default boot to Mandrake.
3)Mounted new partition and copied new lines from RH9/boot/grub/menu.lst to the end of Mdk92/boot/grub/menu.lst.
4)Rebooted and selected RH9 from menu.

I could probably have done it with lilo as well, but, I decided I really liked the function provided by the grub console and chainloading. More value to me than the prettiness of the graphic lilo.

---------------

Forget up2date. The apt4rpm / apt-get procedure is the way to go. You will not be tied into any RedHat marketting schemes.

I will leave it to Quint to post details, serves him right for getting it to work before I had a chance to.

[quint]

Owyn quote:

Quint:

You beat me to it.

I just finished installing RH9 and doing some checking on sound configuration. Checking in from RH9 before starting updates.

Did you go with a local copy or use the freshmeat rpms?

Hi Owyn,

Thanks again for your idea! My RH9 distro is on my smallest partition (6.5GB), so I'm unable to "keep" very much...that said, your method of obtaining all the "updates" was a God-send; I even ran out of space before the 608MB were finished...I deleted a few files, started over, and much to my surprise/delight, it picked up where it had left off!! Excellent..."burned" all to CD, deleted the files/folders...room for next "batch".

The "APT4RPM", I d/l from "Sourceforge.net", read all the appropriate documents, tried it, simply amazing! Maybe it even works BETTER than in Debian.

Owyn, you and Tranquilo have enabled me to have a most productive and enjoyable day...thank you both!

Oh, btw, "YUM" is very interesting, but very powerful - will have to read more on it...but it looks quite promising.

[teacher]

Let's just say that if daughter's class next quarter was not Red Hat based, it would not be on my computer. It took all afternoon to get everything loaded right! I don't know how it installed Grub the second time because I did not see a screen asking like the previous install. Took a while to get rid of it and reinstall a properly configured Lilo. I did not care for the looks of the Grub screen.

I just reduced the partition down to 10 GB. If it does not work when I go back to Fedora then I might not be doing Fedora. The scary part is wondering how daughter's computer will install if she does not bring it home on the plane. I hope she can grab one of those "geeks" from school to come to her room and install it for her! She was real excited after one of them talked to her basic animation class about Perl.

[Owyn]

Julia:
Not sure why you had problems installing. It was fairly straight forward for me, but, I chose the custom route.

I pre-created a new 2GB partition via diskdrake and the only thing that was special in diskdruid was setting a "/" mount point for the partition. Other than that, I trimmed the package selection down to the basic minimum to test Gnome/KDE/Updates and Configuration. Total install was about 1350MB.

My effective disk space is of course much larger than that. I can mount other partitions on this system or my network as required, and, of course the common swap file for all distros.

Switching topics.
When you are ready to test the sound on your system open a new topic and we can discuss it there. I have found instructions on adding alsa to RH9 and probably Fedora, but, have not yet had time to test them.

[teacher]

Okay. Sound will be another day. Bruno told me not to touch the computer again today. Actually I am about ready to crash for the night. I have done enough tinkering for the day.

I have no idea why Red Hat did not like my computer. It would freeze in IceWM right after running the monitor, video card, and mouse config every time, even when I told it to do a text install! I might put my extra stick in my computer before I do anymore software tinkering.

[Owyn]

Okay.  Sound will be another day.  Bruno told me not to touch the computer again today.  Actually I am about ready to crash for the night.  I have done enough tinkering for the day.

I have no idea why Red Hat did not like my computer.  It would freeze in IceWM right after running the monitor, video card, and mouse config every time, even when I told it to do a text install!  I might put my extra stick in my computer before I do anymore software tinkering.

No idea of why the install problems, but, the install cheat codes that Tranquilo posted may help. Leave it till Bruno is available.

No problem on holding off on the sound tests. I still need to get apt4rpms working, etc.

Take care and get some sleep. My worst disasters came from pushing too hard and too long.

[quint]

Owyn quote:

Forget up2date. The apt4rpms / apt-get procedure is the way to go. You will not be tied into any RedHat marketting schemes.

I never was able to get "up2date" to work...it asked, and expected, too much information...always gave me errors, when I refused to feed it what it wanted. That experience is just adding to my enjoyment over "APT4RPM".

[teacher]

I went through many of those including the noapic, the text, noprobe.......Maybe I will figure it out eventually. The screen just did not give me any clues, even when killing, as to what was causing it to hang. Just a screen with a red hat on it and nothing else! This is it for the night for me. Morning comes way to early around here.

[teacher]

It looks like it can handle the 1GB of RAM so that is one test out of the way. It is amazing the progress made in just a few short months. Now if I can get eveyrthing else to wrok. Tried to install apt4RPM but it had some dependency problems. I wish I had the MCC to do things!

[Owyn]

Tried to install apt4RPM but it had some dependency problems.

Julia:

I installed "rpm -ihv apt-0.5.5cnc6-fr1.i386.rpm" without any dependency problems on an unpatched vanilla RH9 system. In fact, it was the first thing I did on the system.

[Owyn]

Oops. Sorry, I see your problem.

[root@TestRH9 apt4rpm]# rpm -ihv apt4rpm-0.65.2-0.noarch.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
        apt-server is needed by apt4rpm-0.65.2-0
        perl-XML-LibXML is needed by apt4rpm-0.65.2-0

This should help.

[teacher]

Let me bounce back to Fedora. I had just switched back to Drake after a botched Slack install (disk trash now).

[Owyn]

Let me  bounce back to Fedora.

Ok. But I will have to postpone my involvement till tomorrow.

Hopefully Quint can pop in and help. I think he allready has a Fedora distro running.