[CentOS] Packages in 5.4 older than 5.3 updates, and no 5.4 updates available?

Sun Oct 25 19:32:09 UTC 2009
Stephen Harris <lists at spuddy.org>

I've been checking the updates tree for 5.4 and notice that they're empty.
I checked 4 or 5 different servers and got the same results.  This is,
in my experience, unusual; there's typically patches for the new release
from day one.  But it could be that the 5.4 DVD is up to date.

So I checked one of my machines and what updates it would need against
5.3 vs those that it would need to update to 5.4  (I've not been keeping
my patches up to date on this machine; I know... stupid me).

My machine is 33 patches short when configuring yum to a 5.3 tree (base
and updates; it'd take 202 patches to take it up to 5.4).  Of those
33 patches, 19 are the same from the 5.4 DVD.  Of the remaining 14
discrepencies 10 had newer versions on the 5.4 disk.  So far, so good.

But 4 packages concern me where it looks like the 5.4 DVD has older
versions than the 5.3 updates:

  5.3 update:dnsmasq.i386 2.45-1.1.el5_3
     5.4 DVD:dnsmasq.i386 2.45-1.el5_2.1

  5.3 update:fetchmail.i386 6.3.6-1.1.el5_3.1
     5.4 DVD:fetchmail.i386 6.3.6-1.1.el5

  5.3 update:gnutls.i386 1.4.1-3.el5_3.5
     5.4 DVD:gnutls.i386 1.4.1-3.el5_2.1

  5.3 update:nspr.i386 4.7.5-1.el5_4
     5.4 DVD:nspr.i386 4.7.4-1.el5_3.1

(These are the 4 my machine flagged; there could be other packages of
similar concern that haven't hit me yet)

Is this merely a case that the 5.4 updates tree hasn't yet been pushed
out and these changes should show up in the near future (when?), have
I found a problem, or am I just plain and simple wrong? :-)

-- 

rgds
Stephen