Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-26 Thread Jim Wildman
Several points (all for enterprises I've worked at)
1) Folks tend to hold onto hardware WAY past the expiration date.  We
still have SunFire v1xx boxes alive and some x86 boxes that aren't 64
bit capable.  If they want the latest OS, buy new hardware.
2) I've never seen an OS upgraded across major releases under an
existing app (other than a web server).  Generally it is the other way. 
The app guys want to run the new version, which requires the new OS, which 
requires new hardware, which requires a full recert.
3) Just because IBM can do it on mainframes and Power/AIX boxes, doesn't
mean you can do it on x86 hardware.  Or should even try. 
4) As others have noted, comparing RHEL to Fedora is not valid.

On Tue, 26 Jul 2011, Mike Burger wrote:


 On Tue, 26 Jul 2011, Mike Burger wrote:

 If IBM can make this happen for their OS, and Red Hat certainly supports
 such a process in the Fedora line of releases (including the ability to
 list additional repositories for remote installation as part of the
 process), they could certainly make it a supportable option for the RHEL
 line.

--
Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE   j...@rossberry.com http://www.rossberry.net
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best
state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-26 Thread Lamar Owen
On Tuesday, July 26, 2011 01:51:18 AM 夜神 岩男 wrote:
 This is roughly what Microsoft used to aim for (somewhere on the road 
 between XP and 8 they seem to have totally quit the idea, though).

As a slightly off-topic aside, there is a youtube video out there about doing 
just that; the video shows an upgrade chain that goes from Windows 1.0 (no, 
that's not a typo) up through Windows 7, all as upgrades, along with all the 
things that have to be changed along the way some of the text the guy 
enters in textboxes is NSFW, however.  So you'll have to google for it 
yourselves; it made Slashdot a few weeks back, so it shouldn't be hard to find.

I'm sure that some of these major upgrades *can* be done, but in a land where 
the package is the unit of OS granularity, and package maintenance practices 
vary from package to package as to 'upgradeableness,' it really becomes a task, 
and this is before even considering the upgrade-hostile attitudes of some 
software projects that upstream ships packaged in upstream EL.  

While package groups give an illusion of a unit larger than a package, it's 
just an illusion, really.  The collective set of dependencies defines the full 
distribution, and nothing in the dependency chain requires rigorous, tested, 
upgrade path implementation.

In the case of other commercial vendors doing this, well, those vendors 
typically have strict and tight control over all the developers working on it, 
and have enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that migration paths are 
implemented.  It's called an employment contract, and it's enforced through the 
ordinary commercial developer chain of command.  

While open source developers and packagers are technically capable of doing 
this, some seem to take great delight in making it difficult to be compatible 
(partly to prevent closed-source programs from continuing to work).  And if 
just one development group becomes the proverbial fly in the ointment, then all 
the users of that package that need upgrades to 'just work' suffer.  And 
sometimes the developers care, and sometimes they don't.

But consider: upstream doesn't employ a 'critical mass' of developers in all of 
its shipped packages to reliably enforce upgrade provisions, even if it wanted 
to do so.

Beyond that, there are packages supported by upstream that have serious 
difficulties with major version upgrades, simply because supporting data in 
place upgrades is not a priority for that development group.  I can think of 
more than one project that seems 'upgrade hostile' but in reality it's just 
something that's not front burner; they'd rather develop newer features and fix 
bugs than 'waste' time on a rarely used procedure that is, in some cases, 
extremely complex and in other cases simply won't work anyway.  That is, there 
are data sets associated with some upstream packages that are impossible to 
migrate in place to a newer version in a seamless, nondisruptive, fashion.

In a nutshell, it becomes a tradeoff of open source freedom versus the upgrade 
needs of the users.  If the needs of the users trump the freedom of the 
developers, then developer freedom (the freedom to 'scratch ones own itch'), 
the very essence of open source, goes out the window.

To the OP, if your itch is to have seamless in-place upgrades, then scratch 
that itch (or pay someone what scratching that itch is really worth... but be 
prepared to come up with six or seven figures).  That's going to be a mighty 
big itch, though. especially with over 2,500 upstream packages from nearly 
as many heterogeneous development groups with many more agendas of their own.
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-26 Thread Les Mikesell
On 7/26/2011 9:03 AM, Lamar Owen wrote:

 I'm sure that some of these major upgrades *can* be done, but in a land where 
 the package is the unit of OS granularity, and package maintenance practices 
 vary from package to package as to 'upgradeableness,' it really becomes a 
 task, and this is before even considering the upgrade-hostile attitudes of 
 some software projects that upstream ships packaged in upstream EL.

Keep in mind that the Linux kernel itself makes no concessions to 
backwards compatibility and demands that all related modules be 
recompiled to match changes.   Enterprise distributions have their hands 
full just trying to keep things working within the life of a major rev 
and are generally restricted in how much new development can be added 
without major breakage.

Other OS kernels have more reason to maintain backwards binary 
compatibly (i.e. paying customers that demand it...).

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-26 Thread Lamar Owen
On Tuesday, July 26, 2011 10:45:42 AM Les Mikesell wrote:
 Keep in mind that the Linux kernel itself makes no concessions to 
 backwards compatibility and demands that all related modules be 
 recompiled to match changes.   

One of my paragraphs originally included a fairly lengthy passage on kernel ABI 
compatibility, but I trimmed it out, and I 'genericized' to more than just the 
one project, and put in parentheses the statement 'partly to prevent 
closed-source programs from continuing to work' as a more generic thing, more 
than just binary kernel modules.

It's most assuredly not just the kernel.
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-26 Thread Les Mikesell
On 7/26/2011 10:18 AM, Lamar Owen wrote:

 Keep in mind that the Linux kernel itself makes no concessions to
 backwards compatibility and demands that all related modules be
 recompiled to match changes.

 One of my paragraphs originally included a fairly lengthy passage on kernel 
 ABI compatibility, but I trimmed it out, and I 'genericized' to more than 
 just the one project, and put in parentheses the statement 'partly to prevent 
 closed-source programs from continuing to work' as a more generic thing, more 
 than just binary kernel modules.

 It's most assuredly not just the kernel.

Yes, its only a slight over-generalization to say that free projects 
have no obligation to existing customers and they usually prefer 'new 
and different' development to boring backward compatible support work.

Even though RHEL isn't a free project, there's only so much they can do 
to reconcile the wild changes in the code they include.


-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Thomas Dukes
 

 -Original Message-
 From: centos-boun...@centos.org 
 [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Eero Volotinen
 Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 1:52 AM
 To: CentOS mailing list
 Subject: Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0
 
  I'll be moving to Ubunto. They have a 3 year window for 
 support on a 
  distribution unlike CentOS/RHEL. They seem to be more user friendly 
  for a home networking environment.
 
 RHEL is supported for 10 years on each major release.

Huh??

From: http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/3/readme.txt

CentOS Errata and Security Advisory CESA-2010:0817

End Of Life security update for CentOS 3:
https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0817.html

As per the upstream vendors errata support policy, updates for CentOS-3
has ended on October 31th 2010.

It is recommended that any system still running CentOS 3 should be
upgraded to a more recent version of CentOS before this date to ensure
continued security and bug fix support.

see also http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/EOLC3

Thank you to everyone who helped make this project possible.

Tru

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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread John R. Dennison
On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 07:33:41AM -0400, Thomas Dukes wrote:
 
 Huh??

RHEL/CentOS are supported 7 years from date of release to EOL date.
RHEL has an optional extended support plan that you can purchase if you
are a RHEL subscriber; CentOS does not offer this extended support as
upstream does not make the update source RPMs available for download
unless you are a paying customer.





John
-- 
Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical,
liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by
the clean end.

-- Unknown


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread James B. Byrne

On Sat, July 23, 2011 19:36, R P Herrold wrote:
 On Sat, 23 Jul 2011, Thomas Dukes wrote:

 I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That doesn't
 work either.

 CentOS ships no non-RPM packaged packages -- look to whoever
 put those packages on your box without using the packaging
 system if you feel the need to blame someone


If that person just happens to be oneself then I suggest that you
use checkinstall in the future so avoid the pain of dealing with
custom installed software outside the rpm/yum package manager


-- 
***  E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel  ***
James B. Byrnemailto:byrn...@harte-lyne.ca
Harte  Lyne Limited  http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive  vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada  L8E 3C3

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[CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread R P Herrold
On Sun, 24 Jul 2011, Craig White wrote:

 you made a vacuous argument.

Hunh.  You are ** still ** trolling here [arguing against 
package management] and on this thread [C 6 matters], Craig?

I thot back on June 13 you said here:

 easier just to give up - I moved my new servers to ubuntu - 
 no more new CentOS installs any more

-- Russ herrold
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Lamar Owen
On Saturday, July 23, 2011 10:25:56 PM Alexander Dalloz wrote:
 Am 24.07.2011 02:00, schrieb Thomas Dukes:
 
  When I say non-rpm, I mean source packages I compiled such as zoneminder. 
 
 And even *if* you would be able to upgrade from CentOS 5.x to 6 -
 technically and by personal skills - what makes you think that your self
 compiled software would not completely fail, just because libraries change?

The specific example of zoneminder is particularly insidious.  On our 
zoneminder systems, even point updates to certain libraries has created 
problems.  A good, modern, package of zoneminder in a repo somewhere would save 
a lot of grief in that particular case.

And even having maintained packages before, I'm not sure I would want to touch 
rolling my own zoneminder package(s).
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Lamar Owen
On Sunday, July 24, 2011 10:20:07 PM Thomas Dukes wrote:
 I'll be moving to Ubunto. 

Never heard of Ubunto

 They have a 3 year window for support on a
 distribution unlike CentOS/RHEL. 

Right; RHEL has a seven year window, four years longer.

 They seem to be more user friendly for a
 home networking environment.

No, they're not.  Been there, done that.  
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[CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread R P Herrold
On Mon, 25 Jul 2011, Lamar Owen wrote:

 The specific example of zoneminder is particularly 
 insidious.  On our zoneminder systems, even point updates to 
 certain libraries has created problems.  A good, modern, 
 package of zoneminder in a repo somewhere would save a lot 
 of grief in that particular case.

 And even having maintained packages before, I'm not sure I 
 would want to touch rolling my own zoneminder package(s).

I've a full set for C5 on ZM 1.23 -- the SElinux blissful 
unawareness of that code is startling, as it is doing 'unsafe' 
operations all over the place.  Running it on a dedicated 
appliance box and treating it as a vulnerable client to a 
SELinux enabled network using network sockets, is about the 
only way to run it safely

1.24 looks 'doable', although perhaps not without some C6 
libraries -- I see it in rawhide, and in F, after F13, as I 
recall

-- Russ herrold
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Lamar Owen
On Monday, July 25, 2011 11:22:37 AM R P Herrold wrote:
 1.24 looks 'doable', although perhaps not without some C6 
 libraries -- I see it in rawhide, and in F, after F13, as I 
 recall

I managed to get 1.24.x (VM is shut down right now due to VMware update 
'things' going on, so can't check specific version) running, but it wasn't 
pleasant, and required very specific versions of things to get it working on 
CentOS 5.  It does work, but it is touchy if any of its dependencies gets 
updated.  And now there is a newer version than the one I have running.

And the SELinux business is still there (or rather, not there) and that 
complicates things. This seems to be more true with network cameras than with 
native v4l devices.

With the library version in C6 being more close to what ZM wants, it should be 
easier to make it work with C6.  Haven't tried out C6 on our VMware setup yet; 
it's ESX 3.5U5, and AFAIK EL6 isn't supported on ESX3.5.  But I'm still digging 
into that, and seeing if vSphere 4 vmware-tools from packages.vmware.com will 
work on ESX3.5.

If ZM just wasn't the most useful CCTV webcam software out there, bar none, I'd 
probably not even bother.  I haven't found anything even close to ZM in terms 
of functionality in the open-source realm.
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Lanny Marcus
On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 10:52 PM, Craig White craigwh...@azapple.com wrote:
 On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 19:51 -0500, Lanny Marcus wrote:
 Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is frowned
 upon. That is the worst way to do it.
 
 why?

 you made a vacuous argument.

@Craig:   I retract that.  Probably something that is discouraged,
rather than frowned upon   Lanny
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Patrick Lists
On 07/25/2011 06:07 PM, Lanny Marcus wrote:
 On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 10:52 PM, Craig Whitecraigwh...@azapple.com  wrote:
 On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 19:51 -0500, Lanny Marcus wrote:
 Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is frowned
 upon. That is the worst way to do it.
 
 why?

 you made a vacuous argument.

 @Craig:   I retract that.  Probably something that is discouraged,
 rather than frowned upon   Lanny

In the RHEL environments where I have worked, installing non RPM 
software was more than frowned upon. It was strictly forbidden and cause 
for immediate public flogging. If someone could not (or did not want to) 
understand why installing non RPM software was a bad idea then that 
person would have been removed from his duties.

It's like using imperial units or US customary units (so non-metric) in 
Satellite design. It's just not an option. And if you insist then you 
can use it but it will be in your own basement and not at a vendor 
creating a Satellite.

Regards,
Patrick
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Les Mikesell
On 7/25/2011 11:37 AM, Patrick Lists wrote:

 Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is frowned
 upon. That is the worst way to do it.
 
 why?

 you made a vacuous argument.

 @Craig:   I retract that.  Probably something that is discouraged,
 rather than frowned upon   Lanny

 In the RHEL environments where I have worked, installing non RPM
 software was more than frowned upon. It was strictly forbidden and cause
 for immediate public flogging. If someone could not (or did not want to)
 understand why installing non RPM software was a bad idea then that
 person would have been removed from his duties.

In production environments where you treat hardware as disposable 
commodity chunks it makes sense to demand the extra effort to make the 
software components reproducible across repeated installs.  In other 
scenarios, it is just extra effort without much purpose unless someone 
else has already done it.  That is, building an RPM is always more work 
than doing a source install and often imposes inconvenient restraints 
like only permitting a single version to be running at once, and doesn't 
give you any guarantee that you won't have to repeat that extra work 
when the distribution changes.  If you aren't planning to repeat that 
install on other machines, where's the payback for the extra work and 
constraints?

-- 
Les Mikesell
 lesmikes...@gmail.com

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[CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread R P Herrold
On Mon, 25 Jul 2011, Les Mikesell wrote:

 On 7/25/2011 11:37 AM, Patrick Lists wrote:

 Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is frowned
 upon. That is the worst way to do it.

 else has already done it.  That is, building an RPM is always more work
 than doing a source install and often imposes inconvenient restraints
 like only permitting a single version to be running at once, and doesn't
 give you any guarantee that you won't have to repeat that extra work
 when the distribution changes.  If you aren't planning to repeat that
 install on other machines, where's the payback for the extra work and
 constraints?

The rant at the start of this thread was about a migration 
into C6, so of course, your predicate condition: 'you aren't 
planning to repeat that install' does not apply

The disciplne and benefit of identifying and solving 
dependencies in a packaged system, rather than splatting as 
root over system libraries upon which other packages depend 
[also, the same isue using CPAN shell to 'solve' a problem, 
rather than packaging, as ZM has many such [1]] is obvious, 
and needs no further advocacy, even for a single install; the 
'straw man' about setting different private library paths 
assumes that the person building such even comprehends that 
there is an issue in play.  Not likely

-- Russ herrold

[1] [herrold@centos-5 zoneminder]$ ls -1 | grep ^per | wc
  37  371354
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Les Mikesell
On 7/25/2011 12:05 PM, R P Herrold wrote:

 else has already done it.  That is, building an RPM is always more work
 than doing a source install and often imposes inconvenient restraints
 like only permitting a single version to be running at once, and doesn't
 give you any guarantee that you won't have to repeat that extra work
 when the distribution changes.  If you aren't planning to repeat that
 install on other machines, where's the payback for the extra work and
 constraints?

 The rant at the start of this thread was about a migration
 into C6, so of course, your predicate condition: 'you aren't
 planning to repeat that install' does not apply

My condition in that case was that you couldn't count on the RPM to work 
anyway once the distribution changes.  So you'll likely be repeating 
that extra effort anyway.  And of course your next install may be on a 
non-RPM based system, making any rpm-packaging effort moot.

 The disciplne and benefit of identifying and solving
 dependencies in a packaged system, rather than splatting as
 root over system libraries upon which other packages depend
 [also, the same isue using CPAN shell to 'solve' a problem,
 rather than packaging, as ZM has many such [1]] is obvious,
 and needs no further advocacy, even for a single install; the
 'straw man' about setting different private library paths
 assumes that the person building such even comprehends that
 there is an issue in play.  Not likely

Now you are talking about very different things. Installing your own 
stuff in /usr/local (as most source installs would do unless you go out 
of your way to subvert it) bypasses the issue of overwriting 
disto-supplied files.   You are right, of course, that outdated and 
missing libraries in the base disto are a complex problem particularly 
for languages/apps that have their own update/install concepts, no 
matter how you try to solve it.  But a simple 'build an rpm' isn't going 
to fix those complications.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread m . roth
Les Mikesell wrote:
 On 7/25/2011 11:37 AM, Patrick Lists wrote:

 Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is frowned
 upon. That is the worst way to do it.
 
 why?
snip
 In the RHEL environments where I have worked, installing non RPM
 software was more than frowned upon. It was strictly forbidden and cause
 for immediate public flogging. If someone could not (or did not want to)
 understand why installing non RPM software was a bad idea then that
 person would have been removed from his duties.

 In production environments where you treat hardware as disposable
 commodity chunks it makes sense to demand the extra effort to make the
 software components reproducible across repeated installs.  In other
 scenarios, it is just extra effort without much purpose unless someone
 else has already done it.  That is, building an RPM is always more work
 than doing a source install and often imposes inconvenient restraints
 like only permitting a single version to be running at once, and doesn't
 give you any guarantee that you won't have to repeat that extra work
 when the distribution changes.  If you aren't planning to repeat that
 install on other machines, where's the payback for the extra work and
 constraints?

Another thing: most places I've worked, the large majority of projects
will be running in production, eventually. Having specialized packages
that you have to build, other than the project itself, means you'll
eventually have to do it for the entire time the project's in production,
and frequently means that the project itself is fragile, and perhaps
poorly implemented, and likely to break.

 mark

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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Patrick Lists
On 07/25/2011 07:26 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
[snip]
 My condition in that case was that you couldn't count on the RPM to work
 anyway once the distribution changes.  So you'll likely be repeating
 that extra effort anyway.

Not sure what you mean with once the distribution changes but within a 
major CentOS/RHEL version (e.g. 5 or 6) there is a stable ABI so an 
update to the distro should not introduce issues. In my experience apps 
deployed on RHEL 5.1 work equally on 5.7. If they work crappy, hire 
better developers :)

 And of course your next install may be on a
 non-RPM based system, making any rpm-packaging effort moot.

So do people in the Windows world decide to *not* build msi packages 
because their PHB might decide to replace all Windows with RHEL/CentOS? 
I have never seen that (the not building msi packages that is). And 
neither the reverse. I build versioned packages so (amongst other 
things) I can create a controlled and predictable environment. Are you 
going to install from source on thousands of servers or do you push 
*one* tested rpm? I know what I will be doing. Anything else just does 
not make sense to me.

Regards,
Patrick
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Les Mikesell
On 7/25/2011 3:34 PM, Patrick Lists wrote:

 My condition in that case was that you couldn't count on the RPM to work
 anyway once the distribution changes.  So you'll likely be repeating
 that extra effort anyway.

 Not sure what you mean with once the distribution changes but within a
 major CentOS/RHEL version (e.g. 5 or 6) there is a stable ABI so an
 update to the distro should not introduce issues. In my experience apps
 deployed on RHEL 5.1 work equally on 5.7. If they work crappy, hire
 better developers :)

The context for the issue was someone moving from 5.x to 6.x.

 And of course your next install may be on a
 non-RPM based system, making any rpm-packaging effort moot.

 So do people in the Windows world decide to *not* build msi packages
 because their PHB might decide to replace all Windows with RHEL/CentOS?

But wouldn't it be better if they actually did that instead of locking 
themselves into a single vendors system?

 I have never seen that (the not building msi packages that is). And
 neither the reverse.

How do you deal with java apps in cross platform environments?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com

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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Patrick Lists
On 07/25/2011 10:49 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
 The context for the issue was someone moving from 5.x to 6.x.

Still normal procedures apply: port to the new platform and/or rebuild 
for the new platform, test on the new platform, rinse  repeat, verify, 
give seal of approval, package and finally deploy the RPM(s).

 So do people in the Windows world decide to *not* build msi packages
 because their PHB might decide to replace all Windows with RHEL/CentOS?

 But wouldn't it be better if they actually did that instead of locking
 themselves into a single vendors system?

Really? No. I wish you good luck with the DLL hell caused by your 
non-versioned, non-packaged, non-controllable, non-manageable source 
install on a few thousand servers. You don't get freedom or 
not-being-locked-in from not using best practices like versioned 
packaging. The choice for a certain platform was made. Deal with it.

 I have never seen that (the not building msi packages that is). And
 neither the reverse.

 How do you deal with java apps in cross platform environments?

RHEL5 life cycle ends on 31/03/2017 so for now I don't.

Regards,
Patrick
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Mike Burger

 Am 24.07.2011 14:04, schrieb Always Learning:

 The challenge is how to do an easily transition from one major version
 to its successor version with the least physical, emotional,
 intellectual and time-consuming effort.

 Paul,

 as much as I understand your point of view, I must disagree taking
 upstream's and CentOS's position. Your description reflects a home user
 or an administrator with just less than a handful of systems.

 CentOS and RHEL aims for the enterprise use. Of course that does not
 imply people can not rely on this stable platform in very small
 environments, but that's not the focus of the OS design. And speaking
 about the enterprise scenario, no serious administrator will risk the
 proper function of his install base by going risky paths. Typically the
 OS is just the base for the middleware and application level. Switching
 to a new major level of OS with lots of important changes means, the
 administrator will have to test and adjust his setup of OS and
 application use in multiple aspects. This even applies to applications
 the base OS ships with.

 In enterprise environments, where the CentOS systems are more than a
 simple shell box or a trivial webserver, it is more time consuming to
 find all the possible places to adjust the obsolete configurations being
 transferred by an upgrade and to find the tripping points than to run a
 clean and fresh installation with a defined state. In less trivial
 setups the applications even get wrecked because of library changes and
 such.

I am a sysadmin for an enterprise running both RHEL and AIX...both of them
being enterprise level OSes.

IBM has managed to support in place upgrading of their OSes from one major
version to another for several versions, now...in fact, each release is,
according to IBM, a separate release, with technical levels or maintenance
levels and service packs being in-level patches.

So, going from 5.3 TL6 SP6 to 5.3 TL12 is as considered patching and is as
simple as running smitty update_all from within an appropriately
configured repository directory (or directories), much like running yum
update.

On the other hand, going from 5.1 anything to 5.2 anything, 5.2 to 5.3,
5.3 to 6.1 is considered a major release...and upgrading those, in place,
is fully supported by IBM, and is as simple as either booting from an
appropriate boot disk, or using the appropriately configured NIM boot and
install/up process.

If IBM can make this happen for their OS, and Red Hat certainly supports
such a process in the Fedora line of releases (including the ability to
list additional repositories for remote installation as part of the
process), they could certainly make it a supportable option for the RHEL
line.
-- 
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http://www.bubbanfriends.org

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[CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread R P Herrold
On Tue, 26 Jul 2011, Mike Burger wrote:

 If IBM can make this happen for their OS, and Red Hat certainly supports
 such a process in the Fedora line of releases (including the ability to
 list additional repositories for remote installation as part of the
 process), they could certainly make it a supportable option for the RHEL
 line.

The upstream supports nothing as to Fedora, and indeed, 
members of that project regularly (and seem to gleefully) 
break forward compatability

But you are missing the point -- WHY spend the engineering 
effort on trying to support such Major 'upgradeany's?  A new 
deployment takes mere minutes for a commercial shop, and by 
NOT supporting such explicitly, the upstream avoids much 
support and engineering load.

[I say this having done an 'upgradeany' and run into a later 
'nss' in C5 than the C6 initial media provides, that required 
some head scratching, and a nasty workaround, to solve over 
the weekend]

-- Russ herrold
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Craig White
On Mon, 2011-07-25 at 10:05 -0400, R P Herrold wrote:
 On Sun, 24 Jul 2011, Craig White wrote:
 
  you made a vacuous argument.
 
 Hunh.  You are ** still ** trolling here [arguing against 
 package management] and on this thread [C 6 matters], Craig?
 
 I thot back on June 13 you said here:
 
  easier just to give up - I moved my new servers to ubuntu - 
  no more new CentOS installs any more

still running some CentOS 5 servers... what's your point?

Craig


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Mike Burger

 On Tue, 26 Jul 2011, Mike Burger wrote:

 If IBM can make this happen for their OS, and Red Hat certainly supports
 such a process in the Fedora line of releases (including the ability to
 list additional repositories for remote installation as part of the
 process), they could certainly make it a supportable option for the RHEL
 line.

 The upstream supports nothing as to Fedora, and indeed,
 members of that project regularly (and seem to gleefully)
 break forward compatability

I can not believe that the upstream does not guide/provide direction with
regard to the Fedora project, given that the Fedora project is still the
test bed for what eventually goes into the upstream's commercially
supported product.

 But you are missing the point -- WHY spend the engineering
 effort on trying to support such Major 'upgradeany's?  A new
 deployment takes mere minutes for a commercial shop, and by
 NOT supporting such explicitly, the upstream avoids much
 support and engineering load.

Quite simply, because the customer base, which is paying the upstream for
support, is requesting that such a process be supported.

Quite simply, as well, because the upstream is selling the customer on the
idea that their product is an enterprise level product.  Other enterprise
level *NIX providers support this process...the customer may reasonably
expect that this provider do the same.

Sure...it may take only a few minutes for a commercial shop to deploy an
OS, it takes that shop much more time to have to reinstall and reconfigure
the applications that run on those OS instances, test, cut over, etc.

Additionally, not every shop is running their entire Linux infrastructure
in a VM based environment. For those running physical systems, the
hardware may still be within their viable hardware lifecycle, but be in
need of a newer version of the OS.  Should the customer have to purchase
an additional physical system for each instance of their OS that must be
upgraded from one major release to the next?  Where would that leave the
customer, as far as having been sold on the cost effectiveness of their
Linux installs vs other commercial *NIX offerings?

How about those virtualized environments? Spinning up a new VM environment
to eventually replace the existing VM with a new OS instance may also
require the purchase of additional hardware, in an effort to support the
temporary resources needed to spin up, configure and test the new
instances prior to putting them into live use.

The cost of testing and then supporting live upgrade scenarios, born by
the upstream, would likely be less than the cost to the customer base in
potential hardware and manpower cycles, and would undoubtedly build the
upstream more good will from the customer base.

Consider, again, that the feature to perform an upgrade (and not via a
hidden upgradeany command line option) is available in the version of
Anaconda (the installation tool used by the upstream) that is in use for
Fedora intallations and upgrades, and that particular compilation of
Anaconda does include the ability to specify those third party
repositories from which one may have installed packages. It may be
compiled out of the binary that is in use by the upstream, but any of us
who have also used their test environment know that it's there, and are
more than aware that the upstream has and continues to disable certain
features of various included tools when shipping those tools in their
commercially supported distribution.

-- 
Mike Burger
http://www.bubbanfriends.org

Visit the Dog Pound II BBS
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread Stephen Harris
On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 01:07:36AM -0400, Mike Burger wrote:
  On Tue, 26 Jul 2011, Mike Burger wrote:
  But you are missing the point -- WHY spend the engineering
  effort on trying to support such Major 'upgradeany's?  A new
  deployment takes mere minutes for a commercial shop, and by
  NOT supporting such explicitly, the upstream avoids much
  support and engineering load.
 
 Quite simply, because the customer base, which is paying the upstream for
 support, is requesting that such a process be supported.

If there's sufficient customer demand _and_ if RH decide it's worth it
then they might support it.  However I can tell you that the 20,000+ RH
machines at my place will not be major-version upgraded in-place; they'll
be rebuilt (possibly onto new hardware; maybe onto a split-mirror).
That's how we do Linux; that's how we do Solaris; heck, that's even how
we do AIX.

Our support dollars are pushing RedHat in a different direction.  We don't
care about in-place major-version upgrades.

-- 

rgds
Stephen
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread 夜神 岩男
On 07/26/2011 01:32 PM, R P Herrold wrote:
 On Tue, 26 Jul 2011, Mike Burger wrote:

 If IBM can make this happen for their OS, and Red Hat certainly supports
 such a process in the Fedora line of releases (including the ability to
 list additional repositories for remote installation as part of the
 process), they could certainly make it a supportable option for the RHEL
 line.

 The upstream supports nothing as to Fedora, and indeed,
 members of that project regularly (and seem to gleefully)
 break forward compatability

 But you are missing the point -- WHY spend the engineering
 effort on trying to support such Major 'upgradeany's?  A new
 deployment takes mere minutes for a commercial shop, and by
 NOT supporting such explicitly, the upstream avoids much
 support and engineering load.

 [I say this having done an 'upgradeany' and run into a later
 'nss' in C5 than the C6 initial media provides, that required
 some head scratching, and a nasty workaround, to solve over
 the weekend]

RPH is definitely right about gleefully breaking forward compatibility.

It is easier to control compatibility backward and forward when you're 
deploying a closed (or at least tightly controlled) system as opposed to 
one that boils with change the way the Fedora upstream does.

Example: systemd

Find a way to make a transition from 6x to 7.0 seamless by way of a 
simple yum update once SysV init goes away and all system services 
must grow configuration files and drop init scripts. That's just one 
subsystem, there are other huge changes as well (Gnome3...).

IBM and the tightly controlled (and decades long) OS/360 - z/OS process 
or their linear passes through AIX Ver.n - Ver.n+i do not compare to 
Red Hat's situation. Anyway, compatibility is often complex enough for 
IBM to address by quietly including emulators for their previous systems 
instead of shooting for base compatibility.

The key to Red Hat's success has been its hands-off approach to the 
Fedora Project. If Red Hat ever desires to implement something they must 
first present working implementations for acceptance by FESCo -- which 
implies promising, working implementations. This forces a lot of unique 
situations, but the primary effects are:
  * Advances occur at a rate difficult to compare to other projects
  * Entire subsystems can be marked obsolete if a working 
implementation demonstrates superior function (systemd ousting the 
venerated SysV init is an example of this nothing sacred attitude)
  * Technical debate about anything/everything crosses company, private 
and personal lines in ways difficult to interpret from a traditional 
development perspective
  * The chaos level is high (marked by the inability for any one person 
to be an expert on everything at a given time -- by the time one thing 
is thoroughly understood something else has changed)
  * Absolute forward and backward compatibility requires too much 
effort, so the concept of compatibility moves up two levels to the 
data layer[1]

IBM, on the other hand, has a long-term compatibility program they 
consider to be at the core of their business model (System/360 history 
is interesting here). They plan their changes around a few subsystems 
they consider to be sacred. If you want to change something sacred you 
have to plan it out through the high priest in charge of that subsystem 
-- and it is acceptable for major system changes to take several years.

The whole thought process is entirely different -- as are their target 
markets. Red Hat is a good value for large- to huge-sized businesses, 
and IBM is a better value (sometimes with a mix of Red Hat in some 
areas/departments) for titanic- to ZOMG-sized businesses.

I apologize for the long message. I didn't have time to write a short one.

-Iwao

[1] I've been thinking about this a bit and I've come to think that 
there are roughly three layers to compatibility -- so I'll define them 
here since I referenced my own definition:

1- Absolute forward and backward compatibility. Code builds and runs in 
exactly the same way on any system in the series.

This is the level IBM shoots for. System upgrades and downgrades are 
clean, reliable and easy to recommend and support.

In Linux terms this would mean you could load, say, RHEL 3 and yum 
upgrade to RHEL 6.1 -- whether that is through a yum-initiated upgrade 
chain or a one-step upgrade is of no concern to the user.

2- Configuration compatibility. Implementations change in radical ways, 
but the interpretation, format and semantics of configuration files is 
absolutely respected between versions and often between competing 
implementations of a single standard. OpenLDAP's move to cn=config while 
retaining the ability for slapd.conf to be read and converted to a 
cn=config loadable set of LDIFs is an example of this.

This is roughly what Microsoft used to aim for (somewhere on the road 
between XP and 8 they seem to have totally quit the idea, though).

In Linux terms this would 

Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-25 Thread 夜神 岩男
On 07/26/2011 02:07 PM, Mike Burger wrote:

 But you are missing the point -- WHY spend the engineering
 effort on trying to support such Major 'upgradeany's?  A new
 deployment takes mere minutes for a commercial shop, and by
 NOT supporting such explicitly, the upstream avoids much
 support and engineering load.

 Quite simply, because the customer base, which is paying the upstream for
 support, is requesting that such a process be supported.

And this would be a sensible argument, were it not being made on the 
CentOS list. Folks here aren't paying anyone anything.

This is more like an extension of the Fedora community, in a way -- free 
testers and freeloaders. Big deal. Red Hat doesn't *need* to do anything 
for us, come to think of it they're already doing quite a bit, so I see 
no point in complaining.

-Iwao
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Giovanni Tirloni
On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 8:58 PM, Thomas Dukes tdu...@sc.rr.com wrote:
 Red Hat does not support upgrades between major versions (doesn't necessarily 
 mean it's not possible)
 http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installation_Guide/ch-upgrade-x86.html
 http://linsec.ca/blog/2011/02/23/my-adventure-upgrading-rhel5-to-rhel6/

 Since when?? I started with slackware 1.0 on a pentinum 1 system from 
 VaResearch back in the mid 90's, change to Redat 2.0, then Fedora, then to 
 Whitebox, then CentOS.. Never had a problem upgrading on an rpm based system.

That's a good question. It seems that since RHEL 4 (2005), Red Hat has
been telling us that upgrading from earlier major versions is not a
good idea.

- RHEL 3 docs say it's possible to upgrade from 2.1 to 3.x (http://goo.gl/8Gwrs)
- RHEL 4 docs don't bother showing the steps and provide a lot of
warnings for 2.x/3.x to 4.x (http://goo.gl/yiRGK)
- RHEL 5 docs explicitly say Red Hat does not support upgrading from
earlier major versions (http://goo.gl/RQABB)
- RHEL 6 docs explicitly say Red Hat does not support upgrading from
earlier major versions (http://goo.gl/H9zBU)

I don't think RPM is the one allowing/disallowing the upgrade between
major versions. The kernel architecture and other major components
changes are more likely to be the culprit. I'd be surprised how you
moved from Slackware 1.0 all the way to CentOS without a reinstall
(because that's what is being discussed here).

Just as reference, starting with Solaris 11, it'll not be possible to
upgrade from earlier major versions either (although binary
compatibility will still be there). Oracle is asking customers to
treat earlier versions as legacy and put them in  containers and/or
virtual machines. Solaris 11 will change so much how things work that
Oracle says it's better not to bother upgrading path from Solaris 10.

My point is that big changes happen in Linux much frequently than in
Solaris and even Solaris sometimes doesn't support these kinds of
upgrades.

--
Giovanni Tirloni
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Always Learning

On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 08:30 -0300, Giovanni Tirloni wrote:

 My point is that big changes happen in Linux much frequently than in
 Solaris and even Solaris sometimes doesn't support these kinds of
 upgrades.

It is the inevitable and time-consuming upheaval which many will
probably find daunting. Installing Centos then configuring it for a
specific manner of operation can take several hours.

When I recently re-installed C 5.6 as a server/desktop, the
configuration took 4 to 5 hours to complete. I didn't use kickstart.

People love and appreciate Centos. They sometimes shudder at the
implication of effectively a re-installation, re-configuration and a
translation of perfectly good reliable working applications into
unfamiliar compulsory alternatives. Get something wrong and the time and
effort increases and competes with the daily priorities of running a
smooth computer operation and responding to all the things that do
occur.

The challenge is how to do an easily transition from one major version
to its successor version with the least physical, emotional,
intellectual and time-consuming effort.


-- 
With best regards,

Paul.
England,
EU.


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Alexander Dalloz
Am 24.07.2011 14:04, schrieb Always Learning:
 
 On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 08:30 -0300, Giovanni Tirloni wrote:
 
 My point is that big changes happen in Linux much frequently than in
 Solaris and even Solaris sometimes doesn't support these kinds of
 upgrades.
 
 It is the inevitable and time-consuming upheaval which many will
 probably find daunting. Installing Centos then configuring it for a
 specific manner of operation can take several hours.
 
 When I recently re-installed C 5.6 as a server/desktop, the
 configuration took 4 to 5 hours to complete. I didn't use kickstart.
 
 People love and appreciate Centos. They sometimes shudder at the
 implication of effectively a re-installation, re-configuration and a
 translation of perfectly good reliable working applications into
 unfamiliar compulsory alternatives. Get something wrong and the time and
 effort increases and competes with the daily priorities of running a
 smooth computer operation and responding to all the things that do
 occur.
 
 The challenge is how to do an easily transition from one major version
 to its successor version with the least physical, emotional,
 intellectual and time-consuming effort.

Paul,

as much as I understand your point of view, I must disagree taking
upstream's and CentOS's position. Your description reflects a home user
or an administrator with just less than a handful of systems.

CentOS and RHEL aims for the enterprise use. Of course that does not
imply people can not rely on this stable platform in very small
environments, but that's not the focus of the OS design. And speaking
about the enterprise scenario, no serious administrator will risk the
proper function of his install base by going risky paths. Typically the
OS is just the base for the middleware and application level. Switching
to a new major level of OS with lots of important changes means, the
administrator will have to test and adjust his setup of OS and
application use in multiple aspects. This even applies to applications
the base OS ships with.

In enterprise environments, where the CentOS systems are more than a
simple shell box or a trivial webserver, it is more time consuming to
find all the possible places to adjust the obsolete configurations being
transferred by an upgrade and to find the tripping points than to run a
clean and fresh installation with a defined state. In less trivial
setups the applications even get wrecked because of library changes and
such.

Regards

Alexander


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Always Learning

On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 15:59 +0200, Alexander Dalloz wrote:


 Paul,
 
 as much as I understand your point of view, I must disagree taking
 upstream's and CentOS's position. Your description reflects a home user
 or an administrator with just less than a handful of systems.

Alexander,

I have 11 servers all running C 5.6 and will stay on 5.x while
everything works satisfactorily. For development and experimentation I
use 2 desktops, laptop and notebook running C 5.6 as a server/client
(server/normal user). The 6.x kernel offers me new development
possibilities.

 CentOS and RHEL aims for the enterprise use. Of course that does not
 imply people can not rely on this stable platform in very small
 environments, but that's not the focus of the OS design.

The operating system comprises several parts. The kernel, Red Hat's
versions of various semi-system/application software, the extras like
clustering and kvm. The focus of the design is to provide a very stable
base upon which many different additions will successfully operate and
co-exist.

Red Hat provide one basic version of their RHEL which can be used both
as a server and as a client (meaning 'normal user' environment). You may
have noticed RH's endorsement of Gnome. RHEL is an enterprise operating
system but enterprise, in the commercial understanding of the word,
means more than a server farm or racks in a data centre. It means the
entire corporation - servers and end-users. From the payroll system to
the chief executive officer's desk. RHEL does all these different tasks
admirably well. 

  And speaking
 about the enterprise scenario, no serious administrator will risk the
 proper function of his install base by going risky paths.

Is 'risky path' someone wanting to easily upgrade/convert from 5.x to 6.x ?

 Typically the
 OS is just the base for the middleware and application level. Switching
 to a new major level of OS with lots of important changes means, the
 administrator will have to test and adjust his setup of OS and
 application use in multiple aspects. This even applies to applications
 the base OS ships with.

The large? jump from 5.x to 6.x and the resulting pressure on people to
find the problems and solve them is, obviously, time consuming and for
some demanding.

If some (certainly not 'all') of the 'new' 6.x
systems/changes/improvements were available in 5.x, people could
gradually learn about them including any changes. This pre-knowledge
spread over a year, would make major version transitions easier and
quicker. I acknowledge this is not a Centos issue but a Red Hat policy.
A solution is to experiment with the relevant Fedora versions.

 In enterprise environments, where the CentOS systems are more than a
 simple shell box or a trivial webserver, it is more time consuming to
 find all the possible places to adjust the obsolete configurations being
 transferred by an upgrade and to find the tripping points

Hopefully each application has just one configuration file in one known
location. Keeping a set-up simple and ensuring up-to-date documentation
should avoid 'obsolete configurations' existing and 'tripping points'
occurring.


-- 
With best regards,

Paul.
England,
EU.


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Lanny Marcus
On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Thomas Dukes tdu...@sc.rr.com wrote:
 Just ran the installation DVD but there is no option to 'upgrade'. Looked at
 the RHEL docs,
 http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installati
 on_Guide/ch-guimode-x86.html#id4594292 referenced off the CentOS Release
 notes but the CentOS installation doesn't offer the 'upgrade'.

 I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That doesn't work
 either.

 Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version and have
 to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This is worse than Microsoft!!

@Thomas: I'm a newbie home user, with CentOS on our Desktops, and
Red Hat Linux, before that.

I do not believe you understand the philosophy behind CentOS (an
Enterprise OS) or RHEL (the upstream distro). This is a distro with a
*LONG* life, and without the latest and greatest, for security and
stability reasons.

It has always been recommended to do a Clean Install when moving
from one major version (ie: 5.x) to a newer version (ie: 6.x) and then
to Restore your data, from your backup.

If you do it in some other fashion, there are apt to be problems,
which will probably not be supported on this list.  If you break it,
you will fix it.

There is a lot of information available, on CentOS.org in the Wiki.
HowTos, FAQs, etc. If you look there, you will find many things
explained clearly.

Also, if you search the archives of the mailing list, you will find a
ton of information, from a large group of highly knowledgeable users.
People who work with CentOS in the Enterprise, all day, every day.

Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is frowned
upon. That is the worst way to do it. There are 3rd party Yum
repositories, with lots of things that have been packaged for CentOS
and you can install them with Yum, once you have the Repository data
ready for yum.  You probably won't need to rebuild many packages, if
any, if you use the 3rd party repositories. GL
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Thomas Dukes
 

 -Original Message-
 From: centos-boun...@centos.org 
 [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Lanny Marcus
 Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2011 8:51 PM
 To: CentOS mailing list
 Subject: Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0
 
 On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Thomas Dukes 
 tdu...@sc.rr.com wrote:
  Just ran the installation DVD but there is no option to 'upgrade'. 
  Looked at the RHEL docs, 
  
 http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Inst
  allati
  on_Guide/ch-guimode-x86.html#id4594292 referenced off the CentOS 
  Release notes but the CentOS installation doesn't offer the 
 'upgrade'.
 
  I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That 
 doesn't work 
  either.
 
  Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version 
  and have to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This 
 is worse than Microsoft!!
 
 @Thomas: I'm a newbie home user, with CentOS on our 
 Desktops, and Red Hat Linux, before that.
 
 I do not believe you understand the philosophy behind CentOS 
 (an Enterprise OS) or RHEL (the upstream distro). This is a 
 distro with a
 *LONG* life, and without the latest and greatest, for 
 security and stability reasons.
 
 It has always been recommended to do a Clean Install when 
 moving from one major version (ie: 5.x) to a newer version 
 (ie: 6.x) and then to Restore your data, from your backup.
 
 If you do it in some other fashion, there are apt to be 
 problems, which will probably not be supported on this list.  
 If you break it, you will fix it.
 
 There is a lot of information available, on CentOS.org in the Wiki.
 HowTos, FAQs, etc. If you look there, you will find many 
 things explained clearly.
 
 Also, if you search the archives of the mailing list, you 
 will find a ton of information, from a large group of highly 
 knowledgeable users.
 People who work with CentOS in the Enterprise, all day, every day.
 
 Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is 
 frowned upon. That is the worst way to do it. There are 3rd 
 party Yum repositories, with lots of things that have been 
 packaged for CentOS and you can install them with Yum, once 
 you have the Repository data ready for yum.  You probably 
 won't need to rebuild many packages, if any, if you use the 
 3rd party repositories. GL 

I have never had a problem upgrading a CentOS release since I started with
3.x. Seems now, I can't even upgrade from 5.6 to 5.7. I have never had to do
a complete re-install since moving from Slackware 1.x to Redhat 2.x except
once when I had a hard drive failure.

I'll be moving to Ubunto. They have a 3 year window for support on a
distribution unlike CentOS/RHEL. They seem to be more user friendly for a
home networking environment.

The software package I use which takes hours of trial and error to compile
and install is as simple apt-get install under Ubunto. There are no rpms for
zoneminder 1.24.x. The compliation of ffmpeg/zoneminder seems to be an issue
with CentOS with the outdated php/mysql and other various libs.

I can see the direction RHEL is taking and its more and more like Microsoft.
The enduser is having to be more and more dependent on the provider. CentOS
has its hands tied.

I thank all for the help I have recievied over the years, its just not
beneficial to stay this current direction.

TE Dukes

 

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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread John R. Dennison
On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 10:20:07PM -0400, Thomas Dukes wrote:
 
 I have never had a problem upgrading a CentOS release since I started with
 3.x. Seems now, I can't even upgrade from 5.6 to 5.7. I have never had to do
 a complete re-install since moving from Slackware 1.x to Redhat 2.x except
 once when I had a hard drive failure.

There is no 5.7 yet.

 The software package I use which takes hours of trial and error to compile
 and install is as simple apt-get install under Ubunto. There are no rpms for
 zoneminder 1.24.x. The compliation of ffmpeg/zoneminder seems to be an issue
 with CentOS with the outdated php/mysql and other various libs.

I know of at least one packaged zoneminder and its required deps; I'm
not sure if it's public but if it is the person that did the packaging will
likely speak up as he is on this list.  So it's indeed possible.

 I can see the direction RHEL is taking and its more and more like Microsoft.
 The enduser is having to be more and more dependent on the provider. CentOS
 has its hands tied.

This is purely FUD.

 I thank all for the help I have recievied over the years, its just not
 beneficial to stay this current direction.

Good luck with future endeavors.




John
-- 
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to
what lies within us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Always Learning

On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 22:20 -0400, Thomas Dukes wrote:

 The compliation of ffmpeg/zoneminder seems to be an issue
 with CentOS with the outdated php/mysql and other various libs.

PHP and MySQL work fine for me. My systems depend on both these being
reliable, efficient, dependable and robust - they are on Centos 5.6.

 I can see the direction RHEL is taking and its more and more like
 Microsoft.

While Centos (and SL) exist, we are never going to be like M$. RH needs,
commercially, to prevent/reduce business losses to copy-cat companies
like Oracle etc. 

 The enduser is having to be more and more dependent on the provider.
 CentOS has its hands tied.

Yes all Centos users are dependent on RH if they want to run a 100%
binary compatible system. However there is flexibility to add
non-standard software and, as you have proved, one's own non-standard
applications successfully.

Good Luck. We will be here if you pop back sometime in the future.


-- 
With best regards,

Paul.
England,
EU.


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Craig White
On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 22:20 -0400, Thomas Dukes wrote:
 
  -Original Message-
  From: centos-boun...@centos.org 
  [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Lanny Marcus
  Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2011 8:51 PM
  To: CentOS mailing list
  Subject: Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0
  
  On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Thomas Dukes 
  tdu...@sc.rr.com wrote:
   Just ran the installation DVD but there is no option to 'upgrade'. 
   Looked at the RHEL docs, 
   
  http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Inst
   allati
   on_Guide/ch-guimode-x86.html#id4594292 referenced off the CentOS 
   Release notes but the CentOS installation doesn't offer the 
  'upgrade'.
  
   I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That 
  doesn't work 
   either.
  
   Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version 
   and have to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This 
  is worse than Microsoft!!
  
  @Thomas: I'm a newbie home user, with CentOS on our 
  Desktops, and Red Hat Linux, before that.
  
  I do not believe you understand the philosophy behind CentOS 
  (an Enterprise OS) or RHEL (the upstream distro). This is a 
  distro with a
  *LONG* life, and without the latest and greatest, for 
  security and stability reasons.
  
  It has always been recommended to do a Clean Install when 
  moving from one major version (ie: 5.x) to a newer version 
  (ie: 6.x) and then to Restore your data, from your backup.
  
  If you do it in some other fashion, there are apt to be 
  problems, which will probably not be supported on this list.  
  If you break it, you will fix it.
  
  There is a lot of information available, on CentOS.org in the Wiki.
  HowTos, FAQs, etc. If you look there, you will find many 
  things explained clearly.
  
  Also, if you search the archives of the mailing list, you 
  will find a ton of information, from a large group of highly 
  knowledgeable users.
  People who work with CentOS in the Enterprise, all day, every day.
  
  Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is 
  frowned upon. That is the worst way to do it. There are 3rd 
  party Yum repositories, with lots of things that have been 
  packaged for CentOS and you can install them with Yum, once 
  you have the Repository data ready for yum.  You probably 
  won't need to rebuild many packages, if any, if you use the 
  3rd party repositories. GL 
 
 I have never had a problem upgrading a CentOS release since I started with
 3.x. Seems now, I can't even upgrade from 5.6 to 5.7. I have never had to do
 a complete re-install since moving from Slackware 1.x to Redhat 2.x except
 once when I had a hard drive failure.
 
 I'll be moving to Ubunto. They have a 3 year window for support on a
 distribution unlike CentOS/RHEL. They seem to be more user friendly for a
 home networking environment.
 
 The software package I use which takes hours of trial and error to compile
 and install is as simple apt-get install under Ubunto. There are no rpms for
 zoneminder 1.24.x. The compliation of ffmpeg/zoneminder seems to be an issue
 with CentOS with the outdated php/mysql and other various libs.
 
 I can see the direction RHEL is taking and its more and more like Microsoft.
 The enduser is having to be more and more dependent on the provider. CentOS
 has its hands tied.
 
 I thank all for the help I have recievied over the years, its just not
 beneficial to stay this current direction.

update from CentOS 5.6 to 5.7 (when 5.7 becomes available) is
automatic... just run 'yum update' - no extra efforts or thought need to
be given.

update from CentOS 5.x to CentOS 6.x is at best a crapshoot. Skilled
admins should be able to fix whatever needs fixing. Less than skilled
admins will find it takes less time to backup and re-install.

As for switching to Ubuntu...

I have switched my latest installs from RHEL/CentOS to Ubuntu. Primarily
because I felt I couldn't rely upon timely releases/updates.

Let me assure you though that nothing is perfect with any distribution
and while some packages might be newer/more readily available on one
distribution than the other, there are certainly other packages that are
newer/better vice versa.

ffmpeg on CentOS/RHEL 5.x is a bit behind (CentOS/RHEL 5 is way behind).
zoneminder is just perl scripts so it doesn't make that much of a
difference if it is RPM packaged or just tarball install

CentOS/RHEL has a much larger window of support for a specific version
than Ubuntu so claiming that Ubuntu has a 3 year window as an advantage
suggests that you don't understand the RHEL/CentOS support windows at
all.

Craig


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Craig White
On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 19:51 -0500, Lanny Marcus wrote:

 Installing non RPM software on an RPM Distro like CentOS is frowned
 upon. That is the worst way to do it. 

why?

you made a vacuous argument.

Craig


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-24 Thread Eero Volotinen
 I'll be moving to Ubunto. They have a 3 year window for support on a
 distribution unlike CentOS/RHEL. They seem to be more user friendly for a
 home networking environment.

RHEL is supported for 10 years on each major release.

--
Eero
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[CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-23 Thread Thomas Dukes
Help!

Just ran the installation DVD but there is no option to 'upgrade'. Looked at
the RHEL docs,
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installati
on_Guide/ch-guimode-x86.html#id4594292 referenced off the CentOS Release
notes but the CentOS installation doesn't offer the 'upgrade'.

I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That doesn't work
either.

Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version and have
to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This is worse than Microsoft!!

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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-23 Thread Giovanni Tirloni
On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 7:41 PM, Thomas Dukes tdu...@sc.rr.com wrote:

 Help!

 Just ran the installation DVD but there is no option to 'upgrade'. Looked
 at
 the RHEL docs,

 http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installati
 on_Guide/ch-guimode-x86.html#id4594292 referenced off the CentOS Release
 notes but the CentOS installation doesn't offer the 'upgrade'.

 I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That doesn't work
 either.

 Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version and
 have
 to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This is worse than
 Microsoft!!


Red Hat does not support upgrades between major versions (doesn't
necessarily mean it's not possible)
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installation_Guide/ch-upgrade-x86.html
http://linsec.ca/blog/2011/02/23/my-adventure-upgrading-rhel5-to-rhel6/

Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Linux have a very different release strategies
and version numbers. You can read more about the support lifecycle here:
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/

-- 
Giovanni Tirloni
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[CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-23 Thread R P Herrold
On Sat, 23 Jul 2011, Thomas Dukes wrote:

 I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That doesn't work
 either.

A low skill user was never able to go from 2.1 to 3, nor 3 to 
4, nor 4 to 5, and an a minimally skilled will not be able 
to go from 5 to 6.  This is the policy of the upstream, and 
a sensible one, because of invasive changes each major 
release represents.  Functionally, each major is a new 
product.

That said, the CentOS wiki has an UNSUPPORTED method for media 
based 'upgradeany' transitions of the type you mention.  It IS 
UNSUPPORTED, because it can break systems.  For that reason, I 
specifically added warnings to that article, to take and test 
backups before trying that path

 Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version and have
 to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This is worse than Microsoft!!

Much worse -- you could not steal binaries and license keys 
from CentOS because we give them away for free

CentOS ships no non-RPM packaged packages -- look to whoever 
put those packages on your box without using the packaging 
system if you feel the need to blame someone

-- Russ herrold
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-23 Thread Thomas Dukes
 


  _  

From: centos-boun...@centos.org [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf
Of Giovanni Tirloni
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2011 6:54 PM
To: CentOS mailing list
Subject: Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0


On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 7:41 PM, Thomas Dukes tdu...@sc.rr.com wrote:


Help!

Just ran the installation DVD but there is no option to 'upgrade'. Looked at
the RHEL docs,
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installati
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installat
i%0Aon_Guide/ch-guimode-x86.html#id4594292 
on_Guide/ch-guimode-x86.html#id4594292 referenced off the CentOS Release
notes but the CentOS installation doesn't offer the 'upgrade'.

I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That doesn't work
either.

Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version and have
to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This is worse than Microsoft!!



Red Hat does not support upgrades between major versions (doesn't
necessarily mean it's not possible)
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installati
on_Guide/ch-upgrade-x86.html
http://linsec.ca/blog/2011/02/23/my-adventure-upgrading-rhel5-to-rhel6/ 
 
Since when?? I started with slackware 1.0 on a pentinum 1 system from
VaResearch back in the mid 90's, change to Redat 2.0, then Fedora, then to
Whitebox, then CentOS.. Never had a problem upgrading on an rpm based
system.

Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Linux have a very different release strategies
and version numbers. You can read more about the support lifecycle here:
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/

-- 
Giovanni Tirloni


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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-23 Thread Thomas Dukes
When I say non-rpm, I mean source packages I compiled such as zoneminder. 

 -Original Message-
 From: centos-boun...@centos.org 
 [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of R P Herrold
 Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2011 7:36 PM
 To: CentOS mailing list
 Subject: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0
 
 On Sat, 23 Jul 2011, Thomas Dukes wrote:
 
  I use to be able to upgrade by doing a 'yum update'. That 
 doesn't work 
  either.
 
 A low skill user was never able to go from 2.1 to 3, nor 3 to 
 4, nor 4 to 5, and an a minimally skilled will not be able to 
 go from 5 to 6.  This is the policy of the upstream, and a 
 sensible one, because of invasive changes each major release 
 represents.  Functionally, each major is a new product.
 
 That said, the CentOS wiki has an UNSUPPORTED method for 
 media based 'upgradeany' transitions of the type you mention. 
  It IS UNSUPPORTED, because it can break systems.  For that 
 reason, I specifically added warnings to that article, to 
 take and test backups before trying that path
 
  Guess I'm stuck with 5.6 as I an not about to install a new version 
  and have to rebuild all non-rpm packages from scratch. This 
 is worse than Microsoft!!
 
 Much worse -- you could not steal binaries and license keys 
 from CentOS because we give them away for free
 
 CentOS ships no non-RPM packaged packages -- look to whoever 
 put those packages on your box without using the packaging 
 system if you feel the need to blame someone
 
 -- Russ herrold
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Re: [CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-23 Thread Alexander Dalloz
Am 24.07.2011 02:00, schrieb Thomas Dukes:

 When I say non-rpm, I mean source packages I compiled such as zoneminder. 

And even *if* you would be able to upgrade from CentOS 5.x to 6 -
technically and by personal skills - what makes you think that your self
compiled software would not completely fail, just because libraries change?

If you would have gone the proper way by using rpms, or where not
available by building your own rpms, things would be no drama for you
when doing a fresh install of CentOS 6, because you could again install
additional software from 3rd party repositories or you could just
rebuild and install your own rpms.

You are barking up the wrong tree.

Alexander

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Re: [CentOS] centos] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

2011-07-23 Thread R P Herrold
On Sat, 23 Jul 2011, Thomas Dukes wrote:

 When I say non-rpm, I mean source packages I compiled such as zoneminder.

 CentOS ships no non-RPM packaged packages -- look to whoever
 put those packages on your box without using the packaging
 system if you feel the need to blame someone

[clean up the trimming and leave the top post as it was]

and so the person you are angry at for not taking the time to 
do the packaging, to have a SRPM that may be rebuilt, is ...
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