[LON-CAPA-admin] SuSE-9.2/LON-CAPA upgrade struggle

[Martin Siegert]

Hi,

for those of you who previously ran loncapa on SuSE-9.1 and who now
are faced with the problem of upgrading to SuSE-9.2 first in order
to be able to install loncapa-2.0.0 the following may be useful
(I know one person for who that writeup will be useful because that
person always forgets how to do these kind of thing when running into
such problems the next time :-)

Otherwise: for your amusement or disregard.

Cheers,
Martin

-- 
Martin Siegert
Head, HPC at SFU
WestGrid Site Manager
Academic Computing Services                        phone: (604) 291-4691
Simon Fraser University                            fax:   (604) 291-4242
Burnaby, British Columbia                          email: siegert at sfu.ca
Canada  V5A 1S6

---<SuSE-LON-CAPA.upgrade>----------------------------------------------

1) Start /sbin/yast2

2) click on "Change Source of Installation"
   There must be entries for
   a) SUSE LINUX Version <old>
   b) LON-CAPA (SUSE LINUX <new>)
   c) SUSE LINUX Version <new>
   in this sequence! <old> is your current SuSE version (the version
   you upgrade from); new is the new SuSE version (the version you
   upgrade to)
   All of these entries must have Status "On" (I had switched off
   the <old> SuSE version and then nothing works).

3) click on "System Update"
   Under "Update Options" you should see:
   * Update to SUSE LINUX <new>
   * Only Update

   Under "Packages" you will see in red "Requires manual intervention"
   (if you do not see this, consider yourself lucky, disregard the
   rest and just click on "Next").
   Click on "Packages".
   A new window opens and another popup window "Dependency Conflict".
   Click on Cancel in the "Dependency Conflict" window.
   In the other window in the upper left corner there is a selection
   box marked "Filter" with "Update Problems" selected. Change this
   selection to "Installation Summary".
   In the lower right part of the window by default the "Description"
   of packages is shown. Click on the "Versions" tab to show package
   versions instead.
   
   In the upper right part of the window that shows the packages you
   will see a number of "locked" packages (marked with a lock), e.g.,
   apache. Right click on the lock and select "Update". Usually you
   can simply double-click on the lock to change the lock into an
   "Update" selection. Apply this procedure to all locks.
   However there are a few special cases:
   - gnuplot: do not upgrade this package, but select "delete" (trash
              can).
   - perl-Digest-Crc32: delete
   - perl-HTML-Parser: when you click on this you find in the versions
              window that there are two newer versions. In the version
              window select the LON-CAPA (SUSE LINUX <new>) version.
              Select "update".
   - perl-String-Crc32: delete (a perl-String-CRC32 package is already
              selected instead)

   Click on "Accept" (lower right corner of the window).
   That dreaded "Dependency Conflict" window will pop up again (sigh).
   It shows a perl 5.8.5-3.2 conflict (this is for upgrading to SuSE-9.2).
   Under "Conflicts with" you find a list of perl packages (in my case
   there were 13 packages). Write these packages down (you can use
   "Expert -> Save This List to a File ..." to generate the list) and then
   in a command line window uninstall these packages:
   rpm -e --nodeps <package_1> ... <package_n>

   Click on "Cancel" in the "Dependency Conflict" window and "Cancel" in
   the main window. Say "Ok" to abandon all changes and click on "Abort"
   in the "Installation Settings" window (you need to confirm "Abort
   Installation" to really abort the installation).

4) click on "System Update" again.
   Under Packages you will still see in red "Requires manual intervention".
   (otherwise click on Next). Click on Packages.
   Proceed exactly as under 3) above.
   
   When you get to the point where you click on "Accept" again, you should
   see a "Dependency Conflict" window that does not show any perl conflicts
   anymore.
   
   It did show a "xorg-x11-libs" conflict that can simply be resolved
   by selecting "Remove the Conflicting Package - Delete XFree86" under
   "Conflict Resolution".

   What remains is a "pwdutils 3.0.2-1 conflict".
   Click on "Cancel" in the "Dependency Conflict" window.
   Select the "pwdutils" package in the main window and then in the
   versions part of the window select the SUSE LINUX Version <new>
   version [not the LON-CAPA (SUSE LINUX <new>) version].

   Click on "Accept". You should not see a "Dependency Conflict"
   window anymore. Hurray! Instead you should see a window informing
   you of "Automatic Changes". Click on "Continue". The Installation
   Settings window comes back up and there is no red "Requires manual
   intervention" notice anymore. Success. Click on "Next".

   The upgrade process will start. Take a coffee break. You deserve it.
   When you come back you'll see a window informing you that you should
   reboot your system to activate the new kernel. Close yast and reboot.

5) When the machine is back up, download the LON-CAPA pwdutils rpm
   (e.g., from http://install.loncapa.org/suse/9.2/RPMS/i586/)
   and install it manually:
   rpm -Uvh pwdutils-3.0.2-1.i586.rpm
   
Done. You are now all set for upgrading the loncapa version.