[CentOS] configuration request

[Sam Drinkard]

Well to start, I'm not that new to CentOS, but I've never used yum 
except to keep things up to date, but after reading a lot of articles, I 
started adding software I'd never used before, and unfortunately, the 
most up to date versions came from repositories which I thought were all 
the same.  I never realized there were multiple sources where bits could 
be obtained, yet of different versions.  That's my fault.  Prior to 
migrating to Linux, I'd been a BSD person, and with BSD, you had one 
source of software, and you didn't have to worry about different 
versions from different sources, as everything was located within a 
central source.

My current version is 4.6, and it most likely where I'll stay for some 
time, as the software I use has most likely not been tested or rebuilt 
for later versions, but I'm behind on the weather software itself.  The 
server at my co-lo site has only 512m memory, and the server here at my 
house has 2G, so I don't think I need the huge-mem kernel for the 
downtown location, nor here for that matter.  Essentially, I only use 
the stock kernel, whatever version happens to be current, and even with 
that said, I don't reboot every time a kernel comes out because of a 
problem with remote reboots which fails most of the time, and it's 
difficult to get into the co-lo site, and the ISP does not keep 
personnel at the building all the time.  Only when someone needs to get 
in, or has a problem will they send someone downtown.

Based on my past 3 years of running CentOS, I'll admit I'm not nearly as 
up to speed with various aspects of it and a lot of the tools 
available.  Only in the past few days did I realize within the various 
repo files, were they subdivided into the various areas by name.  To 
make a long story short, I'd just like to be able to keep up essentially 
the base software on the server(s) and not have to worry about getting 
files mixed up like I was told by numbers of folks.  Just did not sink 
in from previous messages stating the same thing.  At any rate, I did 
manage to get some stuff fixed yesterday, but yum is still pulling in 
some of the kernel stuff that I don't need or want, and that's the basis 
for my request for help.

Thanks for your reply,

Sam