[CentOS] Upgrading from CentOS 5.6 to 6.0

Sun Jul 24 13:59:37 UTC 2011
Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists at uni-x.org>

Am 24.07.2011 14:04, schrieb Always Learning:
> 
> On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 08:30 -0300, Giovanni Tirloni wrote:
> 
>> My point is that big changes happen in Linux much frequently than in
>> Solaris and even Solaris sometimes doesn't support these kinds of
>> upgrades.
> 
> It is the inevitable and time-consuming upheaval which many will
> probably find daunting. Installing Centos then configuring it for a
> specific manner of operation can take several hours.
> 
> When I recently re-installed C 5.6 as a server/desktop, the
> configuration took 4 to 5 hours to complete. I didn't use kickstart.
> 
> People love and appreciate Centos. They sometimes shudder at the
> implication of effectively a re-installation, re-configuration and a
> translation of perfectly good reliable working applications into
> unfamiliar compulsory alternatives. Get something wrong and the time and
> effort increases and competes with the daily priorities of running a
> smooth computer operation and responding to all the things that do
> occur.
> 
> The challenge is how to do an easily transition from one major version
> to its successor version with the least physical, emotional,
> intellectual and time-consuming effort.

Paul,

as much as I understand your point of view, I must disagree taking
upstream's and CentOS's position. Your description reflects a home user
or an administrator with just less than a handful of systems.

CentOS and RHEL aims for the enterprise use. Of course that does not
imply people can not rely on this stable platform in very small
environments, but that's not the focus of the OS design. And speaking
about the enterprise scenario, no serious administrator will risk the
proper function of his install base by going risky paths. Typically the
OS is just the base for the middleware and application level. Switching
to a new major level of OS with lots of important changes means, the
administrator will have to test and adjust his setup of OS and
application use in multiple aspects. This even applies to applications
the base OS ships with.

In enterprise environments, where the CentOS systems are more than a
simple shell box or a trivial webserver, it is more time consuming to
find all the possible places to adjust the obsolete configurations being
transferred by an upgrade and to find the tripping points than to run a
clean and fresh installation with a defined state. In less trivial
setups the applications even get wrecked because of library changes and
such.

Regards

Alexander