embarrassing question
my 'main' linux box is actually an old RH 6.2 box with the 2.2.18pre11 kernel. believe it or not, my friend Dick Morrell of Smoothwall fame pointed me to this fantastic site that maintains rpms for end-of-lifed RH distros (like 6.2) so I've upgraded most of my apps... so.. the question now... will a break everything if I now try to run all those apps on the new 2.6 kernel? :-) J. -- -- Joshua S. Freeman [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: embarrassing question
On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, at 8:37pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: believe it or not, my friend Dick Morrell of Smoothwall fame pointed me to this fantastic site that maintains rpms for end-of-lifed RH distros (like 6.2) so I've upgraded most of my apps... Could you provide the name and address of the site? :) so.. the question now... will a break everything if I now try to run all those apps on the new 2.6 kernel? The answer is, as usual, more complex then yes or no. First of all, some apps are more independent of the host platform then others. For example, any user application that makes use of an interpreter (Perl, Python, Java, etc.) is likely not going to care what operating system, let alone what kernel revision, you are running. Anything designed to talk directly to the kernel is likely going to need to be upgraded -- but you could prolly guess that yourself. For example, the modutils and util-linux packages are highly kernel-specific. Things like XFree, which do a lot of low-level hardware communications, also tend to be effected by kernel changes. When it comes to application software like, say, AbiWord or Gnumeric, things get a bit more vague. They likely don't care what release of the kernel you are running. However, they were also likely compiled to use shared libraries. That includes the main system libraries, somewhat misleadingly called the GNU C library, or glibc [1]. Binary compatibility being what it is [2], you typically need to recompile your applications if you change the C library. And you will find you frequently need to upgrade -- or at the very least recompile -- the C library for a major kernel revision. The documentation provided with the 2.6 kernel should give you some idea of what minimum software revisions are needed. Footnotes - [1] I say misleadingly because they contain a great deal more then just the ANSI C standard library, and because they are important to programs written in just about any language, not just C. [2] Binary compatibility is difficult at best, and often impossible in the real world. -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do | | not represent the views or policy of any other person or organization. | | All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: embarrassing question
On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, at 8:37pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: believe it or not, my friend Dick Morrell of Smoothwall fame pointed me to this fantastic site that maintains rpms for end-of-lifed RH distros (like 6.2) so I've upgraded most of my apps... Could you provide the name and address of the site? :) Here it is... http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/ so.. the question now... will a break everything if I now try to run all those apps on the new 2.6 kernel? The answer is, as usual, more complex then yes or no. figured as much First of all, some apps are more independent of the host platform then others. For example, any user application that makes use of an interpreter (Perl, Python, Java, etc.) is likely not going to care what operating system, let alone what kernel revision, you are running. ok Anything designed to talk directly to the kernel is likely going to need to be upgraded -- but you could prolly guess that yourself. For example, the modutils and util-linux packages are highly kernel-specific. Things like XFree, which do a lot of low-level hardware communications, also tend to be effected by kernel changes. makes sense... i only communicate with this box via ssh... i don't have any graphic interface stuff installed on it.. does that make a difference? When it comes to application software like, say, AbiWord or Gnumeric, things get a bit more vague. They likely don't care what release of the kernel you are running. However, they were also likely compiled to use shared libraries. That includes the main system libraries, somewhat misleadingly called the GNU C library, or glibc [1]. Binary compatibility being what it is [2], you typically need to recompile your applications if you change the C library. And you will find you frequently need to upgrade -- or at the very least recompile -- the C library for a major kernel revision. mm hmm The documentation provided with the 2.6 kernel should give you some idea of what minimum software revisions are needed. gotcha... maybe i should just start by upgrading to 2.2.25? J. Footnotes - [1] I say misleadingly because they contain a great deal more then just the ANSI C standard library, and because they are important to programs written in just about any language, not just C. [2] Binary compatibility is difficult at best, and often impossible in the real world. -- -- Joshua S. Freeman [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: embarrassing question
believe it or not, my friend Dick Morrell of Smoothwall fame pointed me to this fantastic site that maintains rpms for end-of-lifed RH distros (like 6.2) so I've upgraded most of my apps... Could you provide the name and address of the site? :) Here it is... http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/ Ahh, apt repository.. very nice so.. the question now... will a break everything if I now try to run all those apps on the new 2.6 kernel? Since it uses apt, if you apt-get dist-upgrade you should be all set and good to go. Things should just work I'm not telling you 100% that it will, but it -should- :) Since installing RH9 and switching to apt (with freshrpm's apt database) I've had great luck with it. I love apt. (after looking at what they have, I didn't see a kernel, so I think you're on your own) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
