On Sat, 2005-07-30 at 11:49 -0400, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Saturday 30 July 2005 10:43, Todd Cary wrote:
I have FC 3 running on my "play/test" box. Is CentOS (RHEL) a level above?
Can I do an Upgrade or should I do an Install?
CentOS 4 -> RHEL 4. Fedora Core 3 is slightly further along on some packages than RHEL4; the RHEL4 codebase was frozen before the FC3 codebase was, but for the most part they are comparable.
Except when you go to do an upgrade. I've not seen a direct comparison of package versions (primarily because I went from FC2 to CentOS 4 instead of going through FC3) but I'm pretty sure an upgrade from FC3 to CentOS 4 is going to leave some FC3 packages in place.
Yes, particularly if you have 3rd party packages installed (Fedora Extras, Livna, Dag, FreshRPMS, Dries, NewRPMS, ...).
Since then I've not followed Fedora development (simply not enough time), so have stuck with CentOS 4, which has done PARI an excellent job thus far.
I would recommend an Install rather than an upgrade, although you can try an upgrade using the upgradeany command line parameter when you boot the CentOS install media (sorry, I don't remember the exact syntax, it might be 'linux upgradeany').
That's correct syntax. A fresh install is highly recommended, but should be OK use the same /home if it is on a separate partition. A full backup is highly recommended in any case if there's anything you want to preserve. I like to install on a new set of partitions and leave the old system for fall-back with dual-boot, and mining for settings/configuration/packages in the old /etc, /var, /usr/local, etc.
If you do decide to play with an upgrade, a dual-bootable "clone" on separate partitions will leave your options open. Can fall back to the FC3 install, or blow away the clone and do a fresh install in the same space if things are too big a mess.
After an upgrade
#rpm -qa --last > RPMS_by_Install_Time.txt
will help find old packages. Anything in the output file after the install date/time is old stuff that you should consider upgrading, deleting, or otherwise fixing.
Phil