I tried to update existing RHEL3 installation by booting with RHEL3U5 disk
and attempting to convince it to update. The help text on the first boot
screen suggests "Press RETURN to install or update" but it did not ever
suggest update - it went straight on asking me about disk partitioning etc.

Attempt to boot with "linux upgrade" told me that my installed version
(RHEL3U3) was too old and cannot be upgraded I told it to go ahead and
it did apparently upgraded (or updated) but it does not look like clean
solution.

up2date is not an option for connectivity reasons.

Oh, and the system needs external driver for root disk. Is it possible that
"Just pressing RETURN" and booting with "linux dd" is interpreted
differently?

TIA

=arvi=

In comp.os.linux.setup kermit <cku192@yahoo.com>:
> I tried to update existing RHEL3 installation by booting with RHEL3U5 disk
> and attempting to convince it to update. The help text on the first boot
> screen suggests "Press RETURN to install or update" but it did not ever
> suggest update - it went straight on asking me about disk partitioning etc.

> Attempt to boot with "linux upgrade" told me that my installed version
> (RHEL3U3) was too old and cannot be upgraded I told it to go ahead and
> it did apparently upgraded (or updated) but it does not look like clean
> solution.

It probably means to allow an upgrade installation from some
previous RHEL version, not update packages.

You could try mounting/copying the CD(s) and try 'rpm -Fhv
/path/to/*.rpm /path/to2/*.rpm'. You'd probably need all rpms of
all update CDs available to get this working, so just mounting
won't work unless you have a couple of cdroms. NFS mounting from
another system would be an idea. Less painful might be setting
up your own yum repository and use that for upgrading.

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 335: the AA battery in the wallclock sends
magnetic interference

"Michael Heiming" <michael+USENET@www.heiming.de> wrote in message
news:ip72p2-6ha.ln1@news.heiming.de...
> In comp.os.linux.setup kermit <cku192@yahoo.com>:
>> I tried to update existing RHEL3 installation by booting with RHEL3U5
>> disk
>> and attempting to convince it to update. The help text on the first boot
>> screen suggests "Press RETURN to install or update" but it did not ever
>> suggest update - it went straight on asking me about disk partitioning
>> etc.
>
>> Attempt to boot with "linux upgrade" told me that my installed version
>> (RHEL3U3) was too old and cannot be upgraded I told it to go ahead and
>> it did apparently upgraded (or updated) but it does not look like clean
>> solution.
>
> It probably means to allow an upgrade installation from some
> previous RHEL version, not update packages.
>
> You could try mounting/copying the CD(s) and try 'rpm -Fhv
> /path/to/*.rpm /path/to2/*.rpm'. You'd probably need all rpms of
> all update CDs available to get this working, so just mounting
> won't work unless you have a couple of cdroms. NFS mounting from
> another system would be an idea. Less painful might be setting
> up your own yum repository and use that for upgrading.

Don't. The CD's merge the .i386, .i686, and other RPM's into the same
directory, and this can cause interesting conflicts between packages of the
same release but different architectures.

Install "yum" and point it to the correct local repositories for the
software. It's fairly easy to set up, even if you need to use "yum-arch" to
set up the Yum header files.

In comp.os.linux.setup Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@comcast.net>:

> "Michael Heiming" <michael+USENET@www.heiming.de> wrote in message
> news:ip72p2-6ha.ln1@news.heiming.de...
>> In comp.os.linux.setup kermit <cku192@yahoo.com>:
>>> I tried to update existing RHEL3 installation by booting with RHEL3U5
>>> disk
>>> and attempting to convince it to update. The help text on the first boot
>>> screen suggests "Press RETURN to install or update" but it did not ever
>>> suggest update - it went straight on asking me about disk partitioning
>>> etc.
>>
>>> Attempt to boot with "linux upgrade" told me that my installed version
>>> (RHEL3U3) was too old and cannot be upgraded I told it to go ahead and
>>> it did apparently upgraded (or updated) but it does not look like clean
>>> solution.
>>
>> It probably means to allow an upgrade installation from some
>> previous RHEL version, not update packages.
>>
>> You could try mounting/copying the CD(s) and try 'rpm -Fhv
>> /path/to/*.rpm /path/to2/*.rpm'. You'd probably need all rpms of
>> all update CDs available to get this working, so just mounting
>> won't work unless you have a couple of cdroms. NFS mounting from
>> another system would be an idea. Less painful might be setting
>> up your own yum repository and use that for upgrading.

> Don't. The CD's merge the .i386, .i686, and other RPM's into the same
> directory, and this can cause interesting conflicts between packages of the
> same release but different architectures.

Have been using this method quite often and no big problems. But
I totally agree that the ease of using yum should be preferred and
should be much more suitable for the unexperienced.

[..]

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 330: quantum decoherence

"Michael Heiming" <michael+USENET@www.heiming.de> wrote in message
news:j963p2-tjj.ln1@news.heiming.de...

> Have been using this method quite often and no big problems. But
> I totally agree that the ease of using yum should be preferred and
> should be much more suitable for the unexperienced.

I've had problems with it, especially when dealing with kernels on weird
architectures. (Putting an i686 kernel accidentally on an athlon machine can
be.... interesting.)