SOLVED: clean install or upgrade? (F14 => F19 or Ubuntu)

[steph]

Not exactly a newbie as I've been running (very passively) amahi for a few years.

I have Fedora 14. Do I update that to Fedora 19 (how exactly? can it be done directly or am I going to have to wade through multiple upgrades?) or is it better to wipe the hard drive and do a clean install? (I have a backup of my data and my installation is very vanilla -- nothing to lose)

Also: Fedora or Ubuntu? Which is best? Am as unfamiliar with one as the other, have some general basic familiarity with Linux in general from running my own web server, but pretty much just enough to be dangerous and follow instructions and copy-paste commands found via google

Also: I have a 4TB hard drive. Partition or not? My amahi server is pretty much a glorified file and backup server. Nothing very fancy so far.

PS: am sitting in IRC channel if anybody is around.

[bigfoot65]

Simple answer. There is no upgrade path from Fedora 14. It will have to be a new install. Fedora 19 is our latest stable release. Ubuntu is in maintenance support only mode which means no new Amahi updates or apps.

In short, complete wipe and install Amahi 7 on Fedora 19.

[steph]

Thanks, love clear answers like this!

[bigfoot65]

I created a new migration guide that might help you. If you are willing, please give it a try.

HDA OS Migration Guide.

[steph]

What I'm doing is not exactly a migration, though, right? I'm staying with the same OS (Fedora). How does the guide apply to my situation? (thanks for it, by the way).

Another question while I'm here: what's the point of partitioning the hard drive that hosts the system (4TB) rather than just leaving it in one partition?

[bigfoot65]

What I'm doing is not exactly a migration, though, right? I'm staying with the same OS (Fedora). How does the guide apply to my situation? (thanks for it, by the way).

This most definitely is a migration. Amahi cannot be updated from one Fedora version to another without going through this guide or similar steps.

Another question while I'm here: what's the point of partitioning the hard drive that hosts the system (4TB) rather than just leaving it in one partition?

You want to partition the drive so the OS only uses a small portion, such as 500 GB. If you don't, it will use the majority of the drive for your /home partition. The shares are located in the / partition, which could be much smaller than the /home partition.

If you intend on only using one drive, I would recommend you make the OS 500 GB, then the remaining 3.5GB (give or take) can be dedicated to /var/hda/files for the shares or you can just leave it separate from Amahi and use it for whatever you choose.

Keep in mind that you will need to mount the 3.5GB partition as if it was a new disk drive via the Amahi hda-diskmount script. That would not be done until install is complete and you verify the install was successful and working as designed.

Honestly it's best to use a small drive for the OS, then have the 4TB drive added afterwards for Greyhole use or as another storage location. Amahi and the Fedora OS don't need much space for files. It's the shares that use the most disk space.

[steph]

I have other drives but a limited number of sata connectors, so adding a small drive for the OS "wastes" a connecter. A lot of my data is going to be crashplan backup stuff, which I've read is not a good idea to do with Greyhole, as it's lots of small files and changing often (otherwise I would stick everything in Greyhole).

I guess I don't understand exactly what I need to migrate. I thought that if I did a clean install of F19 and then entered my Amahi HDA code things would work? It's not as simple as that?

You're right that most of my stuff will be in /var/hda/files -- when you say it will use the majority of the drive for /home, that's the kind of reason that was making me wonder why not just have one big partition with everything in it? Then wherever the data goes, there is space. (Maybe I'm ignorant but I thought that that was how things were organized e.g. on my macbook -- everything in one partition.)

(Right now I'm stuck at the Fedora USB install stage because it tells me the 4TB drive I just formatted as ext4 has no space on it, and the partition dialog refuses to show up...)

Thanks for your help and explanations, I'm slowly getting there!

[bigfoot65]

I guess I don't understand exactly what I need to migrate. I thought that if I did a clean install of F19 and then entered my Amahi HDA code things would work? It's not as simple as that?

Well you will have a working Amahi 7 HDA, but none of your settings from Fedora 14 will be there. Hence the upgrade guide. It helps you restore those settings.

You're right that most of my stuff will be in /var/hda/files -- when you say it will use the majority of the drive for /home, that's the kind of reason that was making me wonder why not just have one big partition with everything in it?

What you don't understand is that when Fedora 19 installs, it creates partitions. It will create one for / (root), one for /boot (really small), one for swap, and one for /home. So in order to control the size of home, you want to make the only partition on your drive a 500GB partition for the OS. Then when Fedora installs, it will use that portion.

(Right now I'm stuck at the Fedora USB install stage because it tells me the 4TB drive I just formatted as ext4 has no space on it, and the partition dialog refuses to show up...)

You probably need to remove all the partitions on the drive, then try redoing the drive partitioning.

It's your choice if you want to use the entire drive. It sounds like it might be an easier install for you if you do it the way you intended.

[miksnake]

I have a newbie question along these same lines. I'm in the process of learning about Amahi and hoping to install it in the next week or two. But, reading through this makes me worried that somewhere down the road I will want to upgrade to an updated version of Fedora and when that time comes I will have to do a complete reinstall. At that time, will my data be lost? Or is that the whole point of setting up a partition on the drive so that a fresh install will only wipe the OS partition and leave the data partition as is?

So, along the same lines and just thinking about the future, I have three hard drives available. One is an old 150 GB drive, the other is a 380 GB drive and one will be a new 1/2/or 3 TB drive. Like the original poster, connections will get used up. So, is it best to install the three drives and use the smallest one for the Fedora/Amahi installation and the other two for data. Or, just forget about the smallest one and use the 380 GB drive, create two partitions with one for Fedora/Amahi and the second for data and then add the new drive in when I get it, thus saving a connector spot for future additional drive space? Again, all this with the idea that I don't want to lose all my data when it becomes time for a future Fedora upgrade.

Thank you all for your help and patience with us absolute beginners. This all has a pretty big learning curve so I really appreciate the work you've done to make things easier and your understanding. There still seems to be a few areas where us users have to get in the weeds with command lines and such.

Cheers.

[bigfoot65]

So, is it best to install the three drives and use the smallest one for the Fedora/Amahi installation and the other two for data.

That is what I would do using Greyhole for my other drives. By doing so, all my data is on those drives. Then when I install a new OS and Amahi, reattach those drives and all my files return. Key is to set up the new install correctly so all the same shares exist as with the previous installation.

As for apps, no simple way to back those up. Typically you have to redo those with a new install. If the app has a MySQL database, you can back it up for restore on the new system. There are ways to back up the apps, but this is something more for advanced users as it's all manual.

Hope this helps.