[Yum] Migrate from CentOS 5.5 to SL5.5

[Ljubomir Ljubojevic]

Larry Vaden wrote:
> 
> The problem as I understand it with SL6 et al is that our rural server
> room is full of single-purpose-built Compaq RAID-based machines
> (cpqarray) and as I understand it, support is ending for those with the
> sunset of 5 :(

I do not understand what you meant by this. Support for RHEL/CentOS/SL 
5.x will be until 2014 if I am not mistaken, 7 years after the launch of 
5.0. And you can use KVM (if you are on x86_64) or VirtualBox/VMWare and 
install CentOS/SL 6 inside virtual machines.

> 
> YES, you are correct about that.  I believe there's something lurking
> beyond my current ability to get my head around the rpm database issues
> involved in Karanbir's comments, namely:
> 
> "All that you should need to do is install centos-release, remove
> redhat-release rpms and just yum update the machine, which should
> bring in all packages changed by CentOS ( since they will have a
> slightly higher E-V-R )."

Nor CentOS nor SL are exact clones of the RHEL. They strive to be 100% 
BINARY compatible, so any product will behave EXACTLY like it is on 
RHEL. But that does not mean that everything is exactly like RHEL.

xxxx-release is dependancy for core packages, so you have to have one of 
them.

FOR move to CentOS: When you change yum repo URL's and install 
centos-release, you will also install few other packages that are 
different then on RHEL system. Next you remove redhat-release so there 
are no colisions, and system will officially become CentOS. When you 
upgrade, it will replace RHEL specific packages with CentOS specific.
FOR move to SL: instead of centos-release, you will install something 
like scientific-release or similar name, remove xxx-release from 
previous system designation and update.

Since this list is about YUM, not CentOS, please either mail me off the 
list or ask questions on CentOS or SL user mailing lists.

Thank you.