What should I back up?

[goranike (Goran Ikac)]

Because the upgrade from Fedora WS 42 to FWS 43 didn’t change the size of the /boot partition (and I have an NVidia graphic card), I have to choose between two options so to be able to follow the available upgrades:

1. to change the size of the /boot partition manually, or
2. to make a clear FWS 43 install

I don’t like either of the options.

Since I’m a newbie in Linux, the first option takes a lot of learning out of my beginers learning path, it’s error prone and, even if I wasn’t a newbie, a back-up is recomanded.

The second option (a clear FWS 43 install) would wipe off all my settings, program installations, and network settings. It took a long time to have it all working the way I wont, and I don’t really know how to do it all again without a lot of research.

I have all my documents on removable media (on an USB HD and on Synology NAS, problematic in the cooperation with a Red Hat distro by itself), so I don’t need to back them up.

Now, is there a way to save my settings so to be able to apply them to the new, clear FWS 43 install? What exactly should I back up? Is there a way to back it all up that is not obvious to a newbie?

[l-c-g (Lars)]

@goranike

Now, is there a way to save my settings so to be able to apply them to the new, clear FWS 43 install? What exactly should I back up? Is there a way to back it all up that is not obvious to a newbie?

Depends what settings you are referring to. Most application settings are in ~/.config, some things are in ~/.local (e.g., if you override .desktop files with modified ones in ~/.local/share/applications/ or Fish shell history in ~/.local/share/fish/fish_history), Flatpak settings are in ~/.var/app/, Firefox is in ~/.mozilla. In short, I would simply back up your complete home, to capture all the hidden folders.

System settings are in /etc or maybe in /boot and /boot/efi, but here I would suggest you simply reapply the changes you made to the new system.

[anotheruser (Mark)]

option 3: continue using the 1GB boot partition and configure dracut to ignore the nouveau driver. On systems with nvidia driver installed, the nouveau driver is blacklisted anyway.

Create a file in /etc/dracut.conf.d/ e.g. omit_nouveau.conf ( the file name is up to you, it must end with .conf though) and add the line

omit_drivers+=" nouveau "

see man dracut.conf for details

run sudo dracut -f to regenerate the initramfs file for current kernel
ls -l /boot/initramfs*

[l-c-g (Lars)]

Or, on my pure AMD systems, with the intention of never wanting to deal with Nvidia on Linux, I simply removed the package ‘nvidia-gpu-firmware’. This has the added benefit that it doesn’t download and update a few hundred MB of firmware blobs every few weeks, which are completely useless on my system.

My 1GB /boot is slightly over 50% full, with three kernel versions plus the rescue kernel.

[anotheruser (Mark)]

@l-c-g

Or, on my pure AMD systems,I simply removed the package ‘nvidia-gpu-firmware’

All true, but off-topic. The OP has a nvidia system.
He should not remove nvidia-gpu-firmware, this would break the fallback option to the in kernel driver.

On pure AMD or Intel systems, the nvidia firmware is never included in the initramfs file unless it has been configured accordingly, as you are surely aware.

[l-c-g (Lars)]

I wasn’t suggesting to do that on an Nvidia system, please tell me where I should have made that clearer.

[goranike (Goran Ikac)]

@anotheruser

Thank you, people!

Well, this is truly amazing! I’ve been awake most of the night. In the dawn, my body gave up (I’m 61) and I went for sleep. I just woke up, turned on my FWS to drink some coffee in front of the screen, and found your answers. Long live rock ‘n’ roll and Fedora Discussion Forum!

Now, I have to study the dracut and dracut.conf man pages (it will take some time for me, it’s not an easy read for a senior newbie) before I apply the Mark’s advice (I like to know what I’m doing) and, if it solves the problem, I’ll mark the answer.

If it doesn’t (perhaps because there are now a lot of updates that I didn’t do), I’ll follow the Lars’ advice, which is the actual answer to my question.

Thank you, people, very much!

P.S.

I use an old NVidia GP108 [GeForce GT 1030] rev a1 in my HP ProDesk 600 G1 SFF because I had it from my windoze time, it’s low profile, has passive cooling, and is adequate for all my needs.

[anotheruser (Mark)]

@goranike

I use an old NVidia GP108 [GeForce GT 1030] rev a1

Could you pls post output of cat /proc/cmdline and
sudo lshw -C display -numeric -sanitize?

[goranike (Goran Ikac)]

@anotheruser

sudo lshw -C display -numeric -sanitize

xxx@fedora:~$ cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,gpt2)/vmlinuz-6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64 root=UUID=c3ca936c-71db-41f6-b249-5418b10b897b ro rootflags=subvol=root rhgb quiet
xxx@fedora:~$ sudo lshw -C display -numeric -sanitize
[sudo] lozinka za xxx [password request]:
sudo: lshw: naredba nije pronađena [the command was not found]

[goranike (Goran Ikac)]

xxx@fedora:~$ sudo lshw  -C display -numeric -sanitize
[sudo] lozinka za xxx [password request]:
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GP108 [GeForce GT 1030] [10DE:1D01]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation [10DE]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
       resources: irq:27 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:c0000-dffff

configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
Should I “ignore the nouveau driver” anyway?

[anotheruser (Mark)]

@goranike

configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
Should I “ignore the nouveau driver” anyway?

maybe, you can test by booting the system with the kernel option ‘rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau’. System should still load the driver from the filesystem.

You can also opt to remove the big FW files in /lib/firmware/nvidia/ga102/gsp/ and /lib/firmware/nvidia/tu102/gsp/. The GP108 don’t need those.
Disadvantage. you’ll need to repeat this after each new update of nvidia-gpu-firmware.

[goranike (Goran Ikac)]

xx@fedora:~$ ls -laF /lib/firmware/nvidia/tu102/gsp
sveukupno 25480
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root      470 lis  28 20:43 ./
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       34 lis  21 02:00 ../
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    32956 lis  21 02:00 booter_load-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    34104 lis  21 02:00 booter_load-570.144.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    18316 lis  21 02:00 booter_unload-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    19256 lis  21 02:00 booter_unload-570.144.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root      888 lis  21 02:00 bootloader-535.113.01.bin.xz
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root       28 lis  21 02:00 bootloader-570.144.bin.xz → bootloader-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root      384 lis  21 02:00 gen_bootloader-570.144.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 12589816 lis  21 02:00 gsp-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 13371848 lis  21 02:00 gsp-570.144.bin.xz

xx@fedora:~$ ls -laF /lib/firmware/nvidia/ga102/gsp
sveukupno 75320
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root      412 lis  28 20:43 ./
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root       34 lis  21 02:00 ../
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    33592 lis  21 02:00 booter_load-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    35616 lis  21 02:00 booter_load-570.144.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    19200 lis  21 02:00 booter_unload-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    20628 lis  21 02:00 booter_unload-570.144.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    16688 lis  21 02:00 bootloader-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root    18076 lis  21 02:00 bootloader-570.144.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 25639648 lis  21 02:00 gsp-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 51324396 lis  21 02:00 gsp-570.144.bin.xz

[gnwiii (George N. White III)]

@goranike

The second option (a clear FWS 43 install) would wipe off all my settings, program installations, and network settings. It took a long time to have it all working the way I wont, and I don’t really know how to do it all again without a lot of research.

My strategy is to document settings and make notes of configuration changes (saved in my “home” directory) so I can reproduce them after a fresh install (which may be on new-to-me hardware). I only backup the home directory, but do save a list of installed packages. Some configuration changes are workarounds for issues that get fixed with upgrades. I always upgrade using the command line. Many configuration changes will be found by Optional Post-upgrade Tasks. I do a fresh install if there are too many older packages that aren’t available in the new release, or when there are too many .rpmnew files.

I would use ventoy with Live USB ISO’s for Fedora 42 and 43 and check that they boot and the Live environment works. Then you can disable and remove the rescue kernel and do a dnf command-line upgrade. The post-install tasks should capture your configuration changes outside the home directory. After reviewing those you can decide if you want to do a fresh install.

[barryascott]

@anotheruser

configure dracut to ignore the nouveau driver. On systems with nvidia driver installed, the nouveau driver is blacklisted anyway.

It not the driver that is the size issue; it is the nvidia firmware that you need for any nvidia hardware driver. So you cannot save by excluding it.

3. Remove the rescue kernel. However make sure you have a live USB just in case you need to fix your installation.

[anotheruser (Mark)]

@barryascott

It not the driver that is the size issue

And how does the nvidia FW get into the initramfs? The driver is the one that pulls in the firmware modinfo -F firmware nouveau. No driver → no firmware.

[Espionage724]

@goranike

What exactly should I back up?

Reinstall clean somewhere (another drive or VM), and open core-apps first; see what you need to change, then figure out how to back-up that change from the previous install.

---

Or clean-install without regard to backing up configs enough times to find out what you really need to be changing (I ended up fine with mostly defaults with years of this I set the OS up as-efficiently as possible so I can get to doing stuff comfortably)