[Mageia-dev] Switching from Cooker to Cauldron?

[Christiaan Welvaart]

On Thu, 9 Jun 2011, Olav Vitters wrote:

> I'm guessing if I attempt to switch to Cauldron, it likely cannot read
> the rpm5 database.
>
> I can only think of a few things:
> 1. Create a new partition, install Mageia 1 on that, switch to Cauldron,
> install all the non-automatic installed packages, copy stuff from the
> Cauldron partition to the existing one
> -> Not too sure about the copying. I've modified various things over the
> years (e.g. special Postfix setup and so on)

You can look for all config files you changed (probably using an rpm 
command) and copy/merge those on the new system. Can be quite a bit of 
work.

> 2. Just attempt to install Cauldron, forcefully reinstall the packages,
> and ignore the rpm difference
> -> I think this will fail though

You can wipe out the package database, but then after installing all 
non-automatic installed packages, you'll probably have many files 
unaccounted for (not owned by any installed package). Not a good idea 
probably. Also all pre/post install scripts will be ran in new install 
mode instead of upgrade mode. I did something like this with a VM (that 
isn't very important to me) and I'm still finding new problems in it (but 
it works anyway).

> 3. Somehow export/downgrade the 'rpm5' info to rpm4. Is this possible
> and how?

There is supposedly a script that can convert the package database both 
ways in mdv, but nobody probably tried this yet.

> 4. Wait for Mageia to have rpm5. Is this planned?

Not currently planned.

> Note: I don't mind some ugly workaround. e.g. I switched from i386->x86_64
> without reinstalling. My Cooker installation is from 2004 or so.

A switch in architecture is not really ugly - the package database 
supports this.


     Christiaan