[CentOS] what people really mean when they say they're running "5.3"?

Sun Aug 8 16:11:35 UTC 2010
Robert P. J. Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca>

  more a terminology usage question than anything else, but in a
couple of weeks, i'll be teaching the first of a few sessions on RHEL
admin and, unsurprisingly, i'll be using centos (as i've done in the
past).

  when i asked the organizer to identify the specific version of RHEL
that was being used at the client site, i was told 5.3 so i can easily
install 5.3 on the classroom machines, but i'm curious about something
and i'll have my contact look into it:  if people *initially* install
5.3, is it standard behaviour to still regularly upgrade as new
releases come out?

  obviously, i have to ask my contact to verify what the client has
been doing all this time but, in general, what's the normal behaviour
for people running centos/rhel?  and is there a way to examine an
install to see how updated it's been since that original installation?

  i just don't want to teach off of 5.3, only to find out later that
they've been keeping up to date and 5.5 would have been a more
appropriate choice.  thanks for any tips.

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

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