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Some see things as they are, and ask "Why?"   I dream things that never were, and ask "Why Not".  
Robert F. Kennedy

“Impossible” is only found in the dictionary of a fool.  
Old Chinese Proverb

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Microsoft is not alone when it comes to fouling things up!

Orignially published on 10/29/09 as
"WOW! Did Fedora pooch THAT revision. . . ."

(Shaking my head in wonder. . . .)

I decided - *after* doing a soup-to-nuts backup, and verifying I could bare-metal restore - to upgrade Storage3 (my RAID box) from Fedora 10 to Fedora 11.

I do the download of the update files, let Fedora reboot into the "update" part of the install, and. . . Zippiddy-doo-da! I get as far as "searching for hardware devices" and it goes brain-dead.

So. . . Figuring there might be a real simple workaround, I did a web search, and found Fedora Bug 507411 - which, (in the developer's own reply to the bug!), states:

Reference citation:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=507411

=========== begin inserted text ==============
Comment #4 From Dave Lehman 2009-08-14 12:54:42 EDT -------
(In reply to comment #0)


> Description of problem:
> Install fails at "finding storage devices". Last week I tried the install with
> the install DVD when I ran into the anaconda bug, but I had now way to get the
> report out of the install environment. Now I've tried the install with the Live
> CD and "Install to Hard Drive" with the same result. I've attached the anaconda
bug report.
Fedora 11 does not support the use of partitioned md devices.
We are working on at least not crashing when we find them for F12.  
============  end inserted text  ==============

The user’s reply – immediately after this post – was a model of diplomatic caution.  He refrained – manfully – from making the usual references to both Microsoft, Vista, and their apparent ability to eff-up a wet-dream.

However, he made it abundantly clear that "not support[ing] the use of partitioned md [RAID] devices" was an absolute masterpiece of technological advancement.

WHAT?!  They "[do] not support the use of partitioned md devices". . . . Holy smokes Batman!!

What is even *MORE* a "Holy Smokes, Batman!!" is the "Oh, we want to make it so we don’t crash when we find them – for Fedora *12*"

Don’t "crash"?  Didn’t you guys test the upgrade path with, at least, *simple* RAID devices installed?  I would have expected – from Fedora at least – to have handled the upgrade seamlessly.

Especially in my case since my machine's system drive is most definitely NOT a RAID device. . . .

There were several other comments like this from people who had "md" devices on their F-10 boxes – and when they tried to update to F-11 - they got the classic Zippo (with the Red Hat Emblem)!

The bad news is that I have half an upgrade sitting on my machine – somewhere.

The good news is that it appears to NOT trash the existing install. I guess what I’ll have to do is reboot back into F-10, edit out the F-11 installation startup from Grub, and then manually remove all the artifacts – hopefully they are all in /tmp or such like – where I can get to them without effing up the entire system.

Looks like I’m staying at F-10 for a while!!

Jim