OK, I've never done an upgrade before either, so I go to this URL : > http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOS5.4/#head-29511ff6659f6463d444feb92326ed2232fc8c08 And I execute these commands yum clean all yum update glibc\* yum update yum\* rpm\* python\* yum clean all yum update shutdown -r now And I come back up and : [amckay at alan ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release CentOS release 5.3 (Final) Of course, the URL does not say anything about those being the commands required to get to 5.4 from a previous release. I've never done this before, obviously ... -- “Don't eat anything you've ever seen advertised on TV” - Michael Pollan, author of "In Defense of Food"