Question on Fedora 42 post installation steps

Ask Fedora
1

I just successfully (I think… no problems noticed so far) upgraded my old laptop to Fedora 42. It boots, and a rudimentary set of tests seems to indicate that all is working properly.

I followed the steps on this page:
https://linuxiac.com/how-to-upgrade-fedora-linux-to-latest-release/

But I also read the instructions on this page:
https://ostechnix.com/upgrade-to-fedora-linux-42-from-fedora-41/

On the latter page, there are a lot of post-install steps. Could anyone comment on any of these steps? Any comments whatsoever are welcome for the steps starting with the section entitled " Fedora Post-Upgrade Cleanup (Optional but Recommended)"

Thanks in advance…

2

Also, could anyone educate me on the difference between the following:

First scenario:

sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=42
sudo dnf5 offline reboot

Second scenario:

sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=42
sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

Are they just two different ways of accomplishing the same thing?

3

I have never used the offline reboot but the second one I have used with no issues and as far as I understand they do pretty much the same thing.

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4

I have used the “discover” method mentioned in the official Fedora guidelines for upgrading:

Other editions/spins are also mentioned :+1:

/Jaybe

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5

Thanks much; this is helpful.

I have been avoiding the Discover method since I started using Fedora. I have been a bit fearful because I had bad experiences with Discover when I was still on kubuntu and Debian previously. I would update my system regularly using Discover, and twice (two different distributions) I bolloxed up my system.

A buddy of mine told me that he had the same problem and had then just started using dnf from the command line. I can’t say exactly what happened, but this is why I have been trying to get a good command and understanding of dnf, which is how I’ve been updating my Fedora distribution regularly.

However, perhaps doing a full release upgrade is different. And you confirmed that it works. I think I’ll try it on my desktop.

Thanks again…!

6

It worked for me; made sure F41 was fully upgraded first and then did the upgrade to 42 after that.

I believe what makes the process safe is that Discover only downloads and verifies the packages while logged in. Then the PC is rebooted and the new packages are installed before you log in again?

/Jaybe

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7

Right, I have fully upgraded my desktop system this morning (the one I will upgrade to F42).

And I have not tried Discover on Fedora yet, so I’m not worried especially as you said it was successful for you. My problems mixing the use of dnf and Discover were on Ubuntu and kubuntu and Debian in the past.

So far my experience is that Fedora is a lot more stable than other distros.

I’m going to do the upgrade today…!

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8

KDE on Fedora is not the same experience as Ubuntu for sure. Back when I was distro hopping, KDE Ubuntu was crash happy and felt barely-integrated into the Canonical ecosystem.

I’ve also found DNF’s dependency resolver much, much more robust than APT. I was able consistently get Debian and Ubuntu into unrecoverable states installing then removing 32-bit libraries, especially Wine.

Fedora on the other hand feels first-class and it’s obvious that lots of the developers daily-drive and dog-food Plasma Desktop on their own systems. Expect offline updates from Discover to work reliably.

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9

Agree with everything you said…!

Just completed the F42 upgrade using Discover. Went very well.

The only issue is that Signal Private Messenger is gone. But that is another topic for another post…

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