Chris Tyler - Fedora Linux

In other words, you should run Rawhide only on a secondary computer dedicated to testing because it's far from stable.

Most Rawhide systems are updated daily. The nature of the development process ensures that features will break one day and then start working again a few days later. Menu options will shift around, and from time to time, your system will not boot normally. You may be frustrated, but you'll never be bored when running Rawhide!

There are two ways to install Rawhide: by upgrading from a released version of Fedora Core, or by installing Rawhide directly.

Rawhide is really just a yum repository of development packages. The repository information is distributed with Fedora Core but is disabled.

Edit the file /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-development.repo to enable the development repository by editing the first enabled line under [development] (highlighted in bold here) to read enabled=1 :

# These packages are untested and still under development. This

# repository is used for updates to test releases, and for

# development of new releases.

#

# This repository can see significant daily turnover and major

# functionality changes which cause unexpected problems with other

# development packages. Please use these packages if you want to work

# with the Fedora developers by testing these new development packages.

#

# fedora-test-list@redhat.com is available as a discussion forum for

# testing and troubleshooting for development packages in conjunction

# with new test releases.

#

# fedora-devel-list@redhat.com is available as a discussion forum for

# testing and troubleshooting for development packages in conjunction

# with developing new releases.

#

# More information is available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Testing

#

# Reproducible and reportable issues should be filed at

# http://bugzilla.redhat.com/.

#

# Product: Fedora Core

# Version: devel

[development]

name=Fedora Core - Development

#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/$basearch/

mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors/fedora-core-rawhide

enabled=1

gpgcheck=0

[development-debuginfo]

name=Fedora Core - Development - Debug

#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/$basearch/debug/

mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors/fedora-core-rawhide-debug

enabled=0

gpgcheck=0

[development-source]

name=Fedora Core - Development - Source

#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/SRPMS/

mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors/fedora-core-rawhide-source

enabled=0

gpgcheck=0

You can optionally enable the development-debuginfo and development-source repositories as well, by setting enabled=1 there as well.

Next, disable all of the other repositories by setting enabled=0 in their respective /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo files. When you're done, enter these commands to confirm that only the development repositories are enabled:

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d

# grep enabled *.repo | grep 1

fedora-development.repo:enabled=1

If you see other repository files listed, edit those files to disable the additional repositories.

Once you have set up the repositories, use yum to perform an update:

# yum update

Setting up Update Process

Setting up repositories

development 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00

Reading repository metadata in from local files

Resolving Dependencies

--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.

---> Downloading header for newt-perl to pack into transaction set.

newt-perl-1.08-9.2.2.i386 100% |=========================| 9.2 kB 00:00

---> Package newt-perl.i386 0:1.08-9.2.2 set to be updated

---> Downloading header for words to pack into transaction set.

words-3.0-8.1.1.noarch.rp 100% |=========================| 4.0 kB 00:00

...(Lines snipped)...

Once you have completed the update, reboot the system. Update the system frequently (daily updates are recommended) by rerunning yum update .

Rawhide can also be directly installed using the Fedora network installation method.

Using a browser, select a nearby Fedora mirror server from the list at http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors.html and verify that it contains the os/development directory for your architecture (not all mirrors carry Rawhide) and that the development tree is reasonably up-to-date (i.e., that some of the files in the os/Fedora/RPMS directory are timestamped within the last 48 hours).

From the images directory on the mirror, download the boot.iso file and burn it to a CD or DVD, or download the diskboot.img file and copy it to a USB flash drive (see Lab 10.3, "Preparing Alternate Installation Media ").

Boot the target system from this disc or USB flash drive and perform a normal HTTP or FTP installation from the mirror that you selected (see Chapter 1).

When installed in this way, the development repository is automatically enabled. Use yum to update the system periodicallyusually on a daily basis:

# yum update

It's not uncommon to see the yum update fail due to dependency issues. Usually the issues will be solved by the next Rawhide update, and the yum command will succeed the next day. It's recommended that you run yum manually rather than using the yum daily update service so that you can see the error messages explaining any conflicts.

It's a good idea to periodically reinstall Rawhide from scratch to eliminate the "cruft" that accumulates with frequent unclean updates.

If you're using Rawhide heavilytesting it on several systems, for example and you have a broadband Internet connection, it's worthwhile maintaining your own local development mirror.

The rsync tool provides a convenient method of mirroring the development repository. To use it, select an rsync URI from the mirror list at http://fedora.redhat.com/Download/mirrors.html . Finding the correct directory within the rsync server may take a bit of experimentation because various mirror sites use different directory layouts. Use the rsync command to explore content on the mirror server:

$ rsync -v rsync://ftp.muug.mb.ca/

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