How to Upgrade your existing system to Fedora 12, Constantine

The new Fedora 12, Constantine is finally out now!! Even before the actual stable release it was already being looked upon as the greatest distribution released till now. If you are planning to upgrade from an existing installation then this article could be of some use to you. I have mentioned a few ways to easily upgrade to Fedora 12 from your existing installation.

If you want to know more about upgrades, I would suggest you to read my previous article before trying it. Following are a few ways to upgrade your existing Fedora installation.

Using Installation CD or DVD

This can be done using the Fedora 12 installation CD/DVD. When you boot the installation CD/DVD the installer will automatically check to see if you have an existing Fedora or Red Hat installation. If it detects one then you will be prompted for a fresh install or an existing installation upgrade.

The window will look something like this.

Using Preupgrade

Preupgrade is a very easy to use tool for upgrading Fedora. This is probably the easiest way to upgrade. This is how Preupgrade works:

• Preupgrade will check for a new release
• If it exists then it will download all the necessary packages to upgrade your installation.
• And then it initiates the installation process.

Please note that, if you are opting for preupgrade then you are highly recommended to download and install the latest preupgrade package available in the repos. There are some bugs associated with preupgrade (preupgrade bugs), thanks to Adam Williamson who mentioned this issue in a comment below. So, please refer the link before using preupgrade. If you are having a similar scenario then preupgrade might not be the right method for you.

The first step would be to back up all your important data. Then you should apply the latest updates available, to keep your system up to date before upgrade (this is an important step). Run this command as the root user.

[root]$ yum update

Then install preupgrade. You can either use the graphical manager or yum to install it. Run the following command to install it using yum.

[root]$ yum install preupgrade

Run preupgrade to initiate the process of upgrade

[root]$ preupgrade

If you want a command line application to upgrade instead then run the following command.

[root]$ preupgrade-cli

Now, on the screen select the fedora release you want to upgrade to (our case Fedora 12) and  preupgrade will download all the packages for you. Now, reboot to start the Fedora installer and upgrade to Constantine.

If you know of any other method to upgrade or feel that something is missing then please leave a comment.