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If you mean it took less time for CentOS to push out 6.5 from when Red Hat released their 6.5, this may be because of sponsorship allowing the maintainers to sp

If you mean it took less time for CentOS to push out 6.5 from when Red Hat released their 6.5, this may be because of sponsorship allowing the maintainers to spend more time, and because of improved build processes. CentOS Devel archives worth a look sometimes as is Karanbir Singh's blog. I use CentOS stock desktop on a recycled laptop as a writing machine. Just the Fluendo mp3 decoder, Adobe Flash installed from RPM and the ntfs-3g package from RPMFusion downloaded and installed so I can read NTFS external hard drives. It all just works on the X200s, including hard drive encryption as I get email on this machine and don't want data accessed if it gets stolen or lost. The 6.5 update just came through as a regular update although much larger than usual (350Mb of download) this morning UK time. All solid, no problems. I always find it amusing that Linux based OSes can run an upgrade like this while I carry on typing in homework questions!

arca_vorago 13y ago
Just don't forget that the official stance is that a fresh install is preferred to an upgrade for RHEL/CentOS. I'm sure for your purposes it's fine, but just a heads up. (I manage a handful of CentOS boxen and have found this out the hard way.)
- csmuk 13y ago
  6.4->6.5 is a minor update. yum update, reboot that is all. Just works. Done it, thanks to ansible, to 24 machines today in about 30 minutes after I QA'ed the packages on my staging machine, DO droplet and laptop. Between 6.x and 7.0 is another story and I wouldn't do this with any distro. Risk is too high. Just build new kit, test it then migrate services and data over piecemeal. Debian screwing up dovecot configuration terribly between 6 and 7 is a fine example of why you shouldn't do this. I've managed about 60 CentOS/RHEL machines, 30+ Debian machines, 20 FreeBSD machines and 200 Solaris machines and I've never done a major release in place upgrade.
  - Nux 13y ago
    DO lets you run your own kernel nowadays?
    - csmuk 13y ago
      Nope. I only run non critical stuff on DO like my personal email and web which to be honest I don't care if someone cracks or breaks. Once I've changed my ISP I'll move it all in house and use an old ThinkPad as a server (built in UPS and console!). We have colo dedicated kit and VMWare (die!) for the production stuff - it's the only way. DO turn SELinux off on their kernels and take ages to update so I can't really take them seriously for production to be honest. Also they appear to be VC backed which is usually a sign of shortcuts taking priority over proper due diligence. Then again for $5/month, pay peanuts, get monkeys. Not bad monkeys for the money. I've paid 3x the amount and got worse monkeys.
  - kbenson 13y ago
    And you can take the reboot as a very strong suggestion, depending on your needs and whether there are kernel exploits to worry about (Oracle's purchase of ksplice is yet another reason I hate them). Much of the time (on select systems!) I get away with just restarting the services. Reboots really do bring peace of mind though.
    - csmuk 13y ago
      Well I'm not sure it has anything to do with vulnerabilities or not. They do a large feature add on minor updates between 6.x and 6.x+1 which may or may not add new modules etc. I design stuff to be resilient to host reboots. Then again we have a lot of kit to play with.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  As others have said, my understanding is that deltas within a major release are upgrades. In fact I have upgraded from 6.3 to 6.4 and now 6.4 to 6.5, but had to re-install this machine to enable hard drive encryption. The 6.3 -> 6.4 and 6.4 -> 6.5 updates arrived simply as software updates using the usual process just involving the download 340Mb of files. I gather the 6.x designation relates to updating the installer and packages available on the release DVDs I think you are referring to 5 to 6 and ultimately 6 to 7. Major versions.
radoslawc 13y ago
Unfortunately upgrading between major releases on CentOS/RHEL is very problematic and it's advised to do reinstall (!). Where on deb based distros it's just dist-upgrade. Recently I've tried CentOS on my work laptop, and managing software with yum is just plainly broken compared to apt. Multilib problems, excluding rpmforge repo conflicting with epel, etc, etc. For example I didn't find the way to compile qtlandcarte, it was just impossible to find required packages. Apt I must say is ages ahead yum. Even using nix for additional packages didn't solve all problems. But on the other hand I use CentOS on dev/test/QA servers for RHEL compatibility and I'm very happy with it.
- btgeekboy 13y ago
  You're confusing two things. It's not suggested to go from, say, CentOS 5 to 6 in place. However, going from 6.4 to 6.5 is expected. Edited to add: per the release notes, emphasis mine: "Similar to the practice of the upstream vendor, there is no supported path to 'upgrade' an installation of a prior major CentOS release (presently CentOS 5) to a new major release."
- nodata 13y ago
  Unfortunately upgrading between major releases on CentOS/RHEL is very problematic and it's advised to do reinstall. Where on deb based distros it's just dist-upgrade. Nowhere does anyone advise to reinstall. Can you quote your source please. managing software with yum is just plainly broken compared to apt. You're trolling. How is it broken? Multilib problems Trolling again. Which problems? For example I didn't find the way to compile qtlandcarte Ah okay. So you're asking for help. Well, what was the problem? Apt I must say is ages ahead yum. Trolling again. Say how it is ages ahead.
  - avtar 13y ago
    > Nowhere does anyone advise to reinstall. Can you quote your source please. "Red Hat strongly recommends fresh installations when upgrading from one major version to another" -- https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installation_Guide/ch-upgrade-x86.html https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_E...

arca_vorago 13y ago

Just don't forget that the official stance is that a fresh install is preferred to an upgrade for RHEL/CentOS. I'm sure for your purposes it's fine, but just a heads up. (I manage a handful of CentOS boxen and have found this out the hard way.)

csmuk 13y ago
6.4->6.5 is a minor update. yum update, reboot that is all. Just works. Done it, thanks to ansible, to 24 machines today in about 30 minutes after I QA'ed the packages on my staging machine, DO droplet and laptop. Between 6.x and 7.0 is another story and I wouldn't do this with any distro. Risk is too high. Just build new kit, test it then migrate services and data over piecemeal. Debian screwing up dovecot configuration terribly between 6 and 7 is a fine example of why you shouldn't do this. I've managed about 60 CentOS/RHEL machines, 30+ Debian machines, 20 FreeBSD machines and 200 Solaris machines and I've never done a major release in place upgrade.
- Nux 13y ago
  DO lets you run your own kernel nowadays?
  - csmuk 13y ago
    Nope. I only run non critical stuff on DO like my personal email and web which to be honest I don't care if someone cracks or breaks. Once I've changed my ISP I'll move it all in house and use an old ThinkPad as a server (built in UPS and console!). We have colo dedicated kit and VMWare (die!) for the production stuff - it's the only way. DO turn SELinux off on their kernels and take ages to update so I can't really take them seriously for production to be honest. Also they appear to be VC backed which is usually a sign of shortcuts taking priority over proper due diligence. Then again for $5/month, pay peanuts, get monkeys. Not bad monkeys for the money. I've paid 3x the amount and got worse monkeys.
- kbenson 13y ago
  And you can take the reboot as a very strong suggestion, depending on your needs and whether there are kernel exploits to worry about (Oracle's purchase of ksplice is yet another reason I hate them). Much of the time (on select systems!) I get away with just restarting the services. Reboots really do bring peace of mind though.
  - csmuk 13y ago
    Well I'm not sure it has anything to do with vulnerabilities or not. They do a large feature add on minor updates between 6.x and 6.x+1 which may or may not add new modules etc. I design stuff to be resilient to host reboots. Then again we have a lot of kit to play with.
keithpeter 13y ago
As others have said, my understanding is that deltas within a major release are upgrades. In fact I have upgraded from 6.3 to 6.4 and now 6.4 to 6.5, but had to re-install this machine to enable hard drive encryption. The 6.3 -> 6.4 and 6.4 -> 6.5 updates arrived simply as software updates using the usual process just involving the download 340Mb of files. I gather the 6.x designation relates to updating the installer and packages available on the release DVDs I think you are referring to 5 to 6 and ultimately 6 to 7. Major versions.

radoslawc 13y ago

Unfortunately upgrading between major releases on CentOS/RHEL is very problematic and it's advised to do reinstall (!). Where on deb based distros it's just dist-upgrade. Recently I've tried CentOS on my work laptop, and managing software with yum is just plainly broken compared to apt. Multilib problems, excluding rpmforge repo conflicting with epel, etc, etc. For example I didn't find the way to compile qtlandcarte, it was just impossible to find required packages. Apt I must say is ages ahead yum. Even using nix for additional packages didn't solve all problems. But on the other hand I use CentOS on dev/test/QA servers for RHEL compatibility and I'm very happy with it.

btgeekboy 13y ago
You're confusing two things. It's not suggested to go from, say, CentOS 5 to 6 in place. However, going from 6.4 to 6.5 is expected. Edited to add: per the release notes, emphasis mine: "Similar to the practice of the upstream vendor, there is no supported path to 'upgrade' an installation of a prior major CentOS release (presently CentOS 5) to a new major release."
nodata 13y ago
Unfortunately upgrading between major releases on CentOS/RHEL is very problematic and it's advised to do reinstall. Where on deb based distros it's just dist-upgrade. Nowhere does anyone advise to reinstall. Can you quote your source please. managing software with yum is just plainly broken compared to apt. You're trolling. How is it broken? Multilib problems Trolling again. Which problems? For example I didn't find the way to compile qtlandcarte Ah okay. So you're asking for help. Well, what was the problem? Apt I must say is ages ahead yum. Trolling again. Say how it is ages ahead.
- avtar 13y ago
  > Nowhere does anyone advise to reinstall. Can you quote your source please. "Red Hat strongly recommends fresh installations when upgrading from one major version to another" -- https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installation_Guide/ch-upgrade-x86.html https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_E...