Bug 87956 - Redhat 9 un-user-friendly for upgrades from Pink Tie etc.
Summary: Redhat 9 un-user-friendly for upgrades from Pink Tie etc.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: anaconda
Version: 9
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jeremy Katz
QA Contact: Mike McLean
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2003-04-03 23:28 UTC by lindahl
Modified: 2007-04-18 16:52 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2003-04-05 00:06:14 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description lindahl 2003-04-03 23:28:39 UTC
From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030313

Description of problem:
When Redhat 9 is booted from CD, it fails to detect an existing Linux install if
/etc/issue has been changed (it's changed in PinkTie, for example, but many sys
admins change /etc/issue), and so only offers install as an option.

There is no visible way to upgrade.

Now section 3.15 of the manual and Appendix H do explain how to get around this
problem. But it's bad PR to make expert users have to read the manual for an
extremely common problem that is new in Redhat 9.

A few words on the screen should be plenty.



Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. change /etc/issue
2. boot from ISO
3. note lack of upgrade choice
    

Additional info:

Comment 1 Jeremy Katz 2003-04-05 00:06:14 UTC
And it's also mentioned in the release notes.

Unfortunately, the only real way to tell what a system has installed is
/etc/redhat-release.  If the contents of the file don't match the distribution
you're installing, we don't show it as an upgrade by default as otherwise, we'd
start showing Mandrake and other partitions as upgradable, when they aren't.

Comment 2 lindahl 2003-04-05 00:13:05 UTC
Well, damn, I'm just stunned that a modest change to significantly raise
ease-of-use for experts is not of interest. At least I now know to not waste my
time filing bugs.


Comment 3 Jeremy Katz 2003-04-05 05:05:36 UTC
When the tradeoff is between
a) confuse users by offering to upgrade things that we can't upgrade 
and
b) confuse users who aren't using our official product by making them use a
command line option to get the upgrade check to work

then it's a lose-lose situation either way.  Unfortunately, this is a case where
erring on the side of caution has to be the approach taken.

Comment 4 lindahl 2003-04-05 05:57:52 UTC
If that was the choice, I'd agree.

However, it seems to me that more information is an easy thing to add,
instead of mysteriously not offering an upgrade option. How about:

"I can't find an existing Redhat install. If you think I should have found
one, please see section XXX of the manual."

That is 1000% better than simply not offering an upgrade option.




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