[K12OSN] K12LSTP 7

Thu Mar 22 05:08:06 UTC 2007

Fedora and RHEL/CentOS are *not* interchangeable in this way.  You don't
try "upgrading" Fedora to RHEL or CentOS without totally breaking your
operating system.  It's like trying to upgrade Windows 95 to Windows XP;
you're looking at a total reinstall.

Just want to make that clear so you don't blow up your OS unnecessarily.

The upgrade path from RHEL/CentOS is from version 4.x to version 5.  The
upgrade path from Fedora is from version 5 to version 6.  You could also
go to version 7 when it comes out.

Now, Fedora is on a totally different release schedule from
RHEL/CentOS.  A new version of RHEL/CentOS comes out approximately every
two years, but each release is supported for bugfixes (but not typically
any new features) for seven years.  That means that you can reasonably
get away with upgrading your servers every, say, four or five years
(your users will want new features eventually).  That means that my
K12LTSP server running CentOS 4 (released in early 2005) will have
bugfixes until the year 2012.  Red Hat does say that it's possible to do
an "upgrade" from one major release to the next one, but that it's not
recommended.  They (and most of us here) recommend a fresh install.  The
nice thing about a LTSP architecture is that you don't need to do this
on the 30 workstations in your computer lab.  You only need to touch one
server.

Fedora releases, by contrast, come every six to nine months.  They are
quite bleeding-edge.  They are also supported with bugfixes and security
updates for, on average, a little over a year.  That means that you're
upgrading approximately once a year.  It is no more recommended to try
to "upgrade" a Fedora release without reinstalling than it is
RHEL/CentOS.  A fresh install is best.  It's more frequent than
RHEL/CentOS, but it still beats installing Windows XP/Vista/Whatever on
30 boxes, Ghost or no.

This is, BTW, why I *ALWAYS* keep /home on a separate partition. 
*ALWAYS*.  This way, I can go from, say, Ubuntu Breezy Badger to, say,
CentOS 4 or Slackware 11.  Obviously, this scenario would require a
fresh install.  :-)  But, since /home is on a separate partition, I can
blow away Ubuntu Breezy totally, install CentOS/Slackware/Debian/Ubuntu
Edgy/Whatever (remembering not to format /home!), and be back in
business without losing any user data.  In short, if you partition this
way, you can relatively easily even hop distros when it's time to upgrade.

--TP
_______________________________
Do you GNU!?
Microsoft Free since 2003 <http://www.gnu.org/>--the ultimate antivirus
protection!

Mel Wade wrote:
> So what is the major version upgrade path for the EL version vs the
> Fedora version?
>
> Mel
>
> On 3/21/07, *Les Mikesell* < les at futuresource.com
> <mailto:les at futuresource.com>> wrote:
>
>     Mel Wade wrote:
>     > Thanks.  So if I understand this correctly, I can install this
>     version
>     > today
>     > and when 5 is released I can do a yum update and I will then have
>     > version 5?
>     >
>
>     It might be possible but wouldn't be advised.  A lot changes between
>     major versions.  If you wait for the 5.xEL beta there's a pretty good
>     chance that a 'yum update' will take it up to the release version
>     though.
>
>     --
>        Les Mikesell
>         lesmikesell at gmail.com <mailto:lesmikesell at gmail.com>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     K12OSN mailing list
>     K12OSN at redhat.com <mailto:K12OSN at redhat.com>
>     https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
>     <https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn>
>     For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Mel Wade
> "The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do." -
> BF Skinner
> http://www.melwade.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> K12OSN mailing list
> K12OSN at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
> For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/k12osn/attachments/20070322/b61fb632/attachment.htm>