Ok, I noticed that most complaints on the Fedora mailing list seemed to have been solved and it has bene a few months since Fedora 9 came out. So I figure that it’s time to finally upgrade. Also, my biggest problems appear to have been resolved. Although X.org is still in beta, nvidia has released drivers that will work in the interim. And today KDE 4.1 was released! I expect it’ll be in Fedora any day now. I was going to wait until it was there so I wouldn’t have to download all the KDE packages twice, but I figure it’s not that big a deal.

Just like the upgrade to Fedora 8, I’m following the procedure at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/YumUpgradeFaq

Here’re the steps I took and any problems I had.

1. Remove all .rpmsave and .rpmnew files.
   For this I just ran locate on .rpmnew and .rpmsave and then deleted the files
2. Find orphan packages with package-cleanup –orphans
   Found some FC7 annd some FC8 packages. None of them failed with %postun
3. Install yum-fastestmirror
4. yum clean all

5. rpm -Uhv ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/9/Everything/i386/os/Packages/fedora-release-*.noarch.rpm

6. mv /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo.rpmnew /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo
   mv /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo.rpmnew /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo
   Just like last time, this wasn't necessary for me

7. Update third party repos. For me this was livna

8. ctrl + alt + F1

9. Log in as root and issue command telinit 3
   Takes a little while

10. Uninstall thunderbird
11. yum upgrade
    Ok, I have problems with ogle, BitchX, thoggen, kdemiltimedia-extras-nonfree, ogmtools and libdvdplay. Probably some lingering dependencies from Freshrpms, although I’m not sure. So Now I have to yum remove them and try again. Hopefully these don’t cascade into many others needing to be removed. Now, it only needs to remove libdvdplay-devel, ogle-devel, and ogle_gui. Much better than my last upgrade. So here we go again…..
    yum upgrade…. (no elipses in your commands)
    It looks pretty neat as all the stuff blows by in the command line. Remember not to go too far until you answer yes to the actual upgrade prompt or you’ll lose valuable time.
    2.8 GB to be downloaded…this may take a while….
    It started at 1930 and finished at….sometime between 2335 and 0630 the next day.  And it logged me out.
12. yum groupupdate Base
    Hmm… yum looks different now.  4.4 MB of packages to download and install.

13. yum groupupdate "GNOME Desktop Environment" \
    "Development Tools" \
    "Hardware Support" "Sound and Video" \
    "Graphical Internet" "Fonts" \
    "Games and Entertainment" "Printing Software" \
    "Administration Tools" "Office/Productivity" "System Tools"
    85 MB of downloads....
    Had to yum remove pirut, the old package manager, because it conflicted with gnome-packagekit then run the command again

14. yum groupupdate “KDE (K Desktop Environment)”
    Surprisingly, only 4.4 MB
    And what’s with this RPM Fusion Free thing?

15. /sbin/grub-install BOOTDEVICE
    no errors caused....

16. cd /etc/rc.d/init.d; for f in *; do /sbin/chkconfig $f resetpriorities; done
    Gave the output:
    service functions does not support chkconfig
    service halt does not support chkconfig
    service killall does not support chkconfig

17. reboot!
    Lots of unable to send message problems – I think this is related to upgrading from System V Init to upstart….anyway….it reboots

As it reboots, I notice the popping sound that everyone’s been complaining about when udev comes up.  Wow!  The graphical boot works for me again!!  It hadn’t been working since I updated to Fedora 8 (or maybe Fedora 7)  No more watching the text scroll by.  The new GDM theme is pretty slick looking.  (At least the background is – the part where you enter your username/password is pretty blah….)

I’m able to log into Xfce (I had it set as my default ever since that Xfce post last month).  It looks pretty slick like the icons have been replaced with some new slick SVG ones.  Interestingly, Evolution has moved from network to office.  And it’s no longer called Email, it’s called “Evolution Mail and Calendar”.  Also, tons of icons appear to be missing within Evolution.  They just show up as a icon with an X in it.  Same thing with Rhythmbox.  But, everything seems to be functioning correctly.  Also, all my desktop icons are gone too.  Perhaps they refer to a theme that’s no longer in use?  I go to Xfce’s menu then Settings -> Settings Manager -> User Interface Preferences.  Changing the theme from hicolor to Bluecurve brings back the icons I know and love…at least on the desktop.  Rhythmbox has also now found its icons, but not Evolution.  I take it down and start it up and now it’s back to normal!  Sweet!  So after my upgrade I’m pretty much able to use everything just like I used to.  Looks like yum upgrade continues to be a viable way to upgrade Fedora.

Later today I’ll log into Gnome and see what’s changed there.  Perhaps they can bring me back from Xfce’s clutches?  And as soon as Fedora goes to KDE 4.1 (any day now) I’ll be checking out the new KDE to see if 4.1 is a viable transition from KDE 3.5.  (I never tried 4.0 because everyone said it was too beta)