Re: [off-topic] CS/IT/SE/CE/IS and analogies to other sciences (was: Re: 7.2 update instructions)

2016-02-25 Thread William Shu
Thanks Lamar.
William.


On Tuesday, February 23, 2016 3:51 PM, Lamar Owen  wrote:
 

 On 02/23/2016 03:29 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
> Apologies, but I do not understand the "+1"; is this approval to post 
> additional commentary on this matter, or, again, is this discussion 
> not suitable for this list?  I did not initiate the matter of the ACM 
> view or curricular recommendations, in contrast to that of an 
> information technology approach; but there seem to be fundamental 
> misconceptions concerning the fields of computer science and 
> engineering in the commentary, just as I have met some "applied" 
> physicists who have misconceptions about fundamental physics...

Once again, the primary purpose of my bringing up the ACM curricula was 
simply to use an academically accepted source of definitions to 
establish common terminology, and to relate that even though many on 
this list are in various theoretical sciences they are not necessarily 
'computer scientists' by the ACM's definition of same. Many are in 
scientific institutions (such as my own) who deal with computers used by 
various theoretical/basic research scientists, but who are themselves 
'information technologists,' again by the ACM's definition of same.  I 
am not an astrophysicist; nor am I any one of the various subcategories 
of astronomer (astronomy embodies astrometry, photometry, spectroscopy, 
cosmology, and many other subfields); but I do support research 
astronomers as my $day_job (to use an IT-ism).  I do have an engineering 
degree, incidentally, but that is not my main job for the most part.

My observation was that you are not likely to get a 'computer scientist' 
mindset in answers to systems administration questions (squarely in the 
'information technologist' realm), but you are very likely to get an 
'information technologist' answer instead.  The details of the 
differences are easily found in the ACM's own curricula standards; for 
the list, those may be found at 
http://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendations

It boils down to a difference in terminology.  A good example is the 
'+1' used to signify 'I agree with that' that you found alien, but those 
who have been in IT for a long time understood as a part of the tacit 
knowledge in the IT discipline.  The use of '+1' on mailing lists and 
Usenet prior to that is pretty common.  Degree of agreement is expressed 
by a larger number; +1000 would be 'vehemently agree,' for instance.

I would personally be interested in your commentary, and I already know 
that there are others who would be as well, but it is probably not 
appropriate for the list.  So, please send me (and whomever may request 
it directly from you) and if it is ok with you I'll forward along to 
those who have contacted me privately with an interest in reading that 
commentary as well.

>
> For Lamar, who evidently has looked at my not-recently-updated 
> academic home page, the item you mention is posted there from another 
> source (I do not have any graphics artists to support my work, and do 
> not have the spare time to do the stick figure material you see) that 
> I thought was credited.
Yes, I saw the actual author (after following a link in the text of the 
document to grab the example source code) after I made the post, and I 
apologize for the improper attribution.

Hope you have a great day.


  

Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-25 Thread William Shu
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I simply meant the following:* I will appreciate a copy of your response on the 
differences between computer science, technology, etc, be it off-list or 
on-list (if moderators approve).* I'll appreciate Lamar's too, and the outcome 
from his University (if available).
Just to provide context, I'm from computer science (CSC); I encounter very 
strange views of CSC, IT, ICT, etc. (e.g., CSC is of Engineering and has no 
place in general [secondary] education or that IT skills are sufficient for 
CSC); and typically feel I and the other party(ies) are from different planets.

William.





On Tuesday, February 23, 2016 9:29 AM, Yasha Karant  
wrote:
 

  Apologies, but I do not understand the "+1"; is this approval to post 
additional commentary on this matter, or, again, is this discussion not 
suitable for this list?  I did not initiate the matter of the ACM view or 
curricular recommendations, in contrast to that of an information technology 
approach; but there seem to be fundamental misconceptions concerning the fields 
of computer science and engineering in the commentary, just as I have met some 
"applied" physicists who have misconceptions about fundamental physics (e.g., 
high energy physics and general relativity).  (I mention fundamental physics 
because that is the basic reason for the existence of both Fermilab and CERN -- 
at both institutions, EL is the operating environment to enable the research, 
rather than DEC VMS of a previous epoch.  Those in the EL community gain from 
this use.)
 
 For Lamar, who evidently has looked at my not-recently-updated academic home 
page, the item you mention is posted there from another source (I do not have 
any graphics artists to support my work, and do not have the spare time to do 
the stick figure material you see) that I thought was credited.  I use this 
introduction to AES (and cryptography in general), along with a Conan Doyle 
short story, as my part of the "dog and pony show" my department does on an 
annual basis to recruit high school students to come to our ABET accredited 
programs as undergraduate majors.  If a person cannot handle mathematics, 
including that behind encryption, then, regrettably, computer science and 
engineering probably is not a good fit (nor would physics be).  When I teach a 
course involving encryption, I cover it with greater depth than what you see in 
the cartoon -- but I still have the students read the cartoon to get some 
background before I teach the mathematics and then the cryptography.
 
 On 02/22/2016 11:29 AM, William Shu wrote:
  
 
 Yasha/Lamar + 1 for your views on these comparisons, and Lamar's university's 
conclusions (and justifications thereto) when done, on or off list. 
  William. 
  
  
  On Monday, February 22, 2016 6:54 PM, Lamar Owen  wrote:
  
 
 On 02/22/2016 11:50 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
 
 
 > would it be appropriate for me to post a response?  The differences 
 > are deep and fundamental.
 >
 
 I can't answer that; a moderator would need to.  I would personally 
 welcome a direct e-mail with the explanation myself, as my .edu is 
 currently investigating 'CS' curricula (where 'CS' is the 
 Google/Microsoft version and not the ACM version of 'CS').
 
 And for the list, one of the more fascinating things you are likely to 
 ever read is Yasha Karant's 'A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced 
 Encryption Standard (AES)' which is available at 
 http://www.csci.csusb.edu/ykarant/cryptography/aes-cartoon.pdf ; I 
 certainly found it interesting.
 
 My paragraph was simply there to let you know that there are probably 
 many more IT folk here than CS folk, and IT folk tend to have a very 
 hands-on and practical 'here's the standard way to do it' answer and an 
 eye towards maintainability, and all of that is just a part of the IT 
 mindset.  Neither is the more correct mindset; the mindsets are just 
 different.  A CIS-mindset is yet even more different, but that's not 
 nearly as well represented here, nor are the CE or SE mindsets, but the 
 IT mindset is very much predominant here.  As well, it was to serve to 
 let the list as a whole know that there are different mindsets out there 
 that are very different from the typical sysadmin IT-centric mindset. 
  
 
  
 

  

[off-topic] CS/IT/SE/CE/IS and analogies to other sciences (was: Re: 7.2 update instructions)

2016-02-23 Thread Lamar Owen

On 02/23/2016 03:29 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
Apologies, but I do not understand the "+1"; is this approval to post 
additional commentary on this matter, or, again, is this discussion 
not suitable for this list?  I did not initiate the matter of the ACM 
view or curricular recommendations, in contrast to that of an 
information technology approach; but there seem to be fundamental 
misconceptions concerning the fields of computer science and 
engineering in the commentary, just as I have met some "applied" 
physicists who have misconceptions about fundamental physics...


Once again, the primary purpose of my bringing up the ACM curricula was 
simply to use an academically accepted source of definitions to 
establish common terminology, and to relate that even though many on 
this list are in various theoretical sciences they are not necessarily 
'computer scientists' by the ACM's definition of same. Many are in 
scientific institutions (such as my own) who deal with computers used by 
various theoretical/basic research scientists, but who are themselves 
'information technologists,' again by the ACM's definition of same.  I 
am not an astrophysicist; nor am I any one of the various subcategories 
of astronomer (astronomy embodies astrometry, photometry, spectroscopy, 
cosmology, and many other subfields); but I do support research 
astronomers as my $day_job (to use an IT-ism).  I do have an engineering 
degree, incidentally, but that is not my main job for the most part.


My observation was that you are not likely to get a 'computer scientist' 
mindset in answers to systems administration questions (squarely in the 
'information technologist' realm), but you are very likely to get an 
'information technologist' answer instead.  The details of the 
differences are easily found in the ACM's own curricula standards; for 
the list, those may be found at 
http://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendations


It boils down to a difference in terminology.  A good example is the 
'+1' used to signify 'I agree with that' that you found alien, but those 
who have been in IT for a long time understood as a part of the tacit 
knowledge in the IT discipline.  The use of '+1' on mailing lists and 
Usenet prior to that is pretty common.  Degree of agreement is expressed 
by a larger number; +1000 would be 'vehemently agree,' for instance.


I would personally be interested in your commentary, and I already know 
that there are others who would be as well, but it is probably not 
appropriate for the list.  So, please send me (and whomever may request 
it directly from you) and if it is ok with you I'll forward along to 
those who have contacted me privately with an interest in reading that 
commentary as well.




For Lamar, who evidently has looked at my not-recently-updated 
academic home page, the item you mention is posted there from another 
source (I do not have any graphics artists to support my work, and do 
not have the spare time to do the stick figure material you see) that 
I thought was credited.
Yes, I saw the actual author (after following a link in the text of the 
document to grab the example source code) after I made the post, and I 
apologize for the improper attribution.


Hope you have a great day.


Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-23 Thread Nico Kadel-Garcia
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 12:54 PM, Lamar Owen  wrote:

> I actually use an rsync mirror (the copy is done with rsync -avHAX, although
> symlinks can be disturbed if not careful) to another disk; an rsync backup
> is restored quite simply, and using hardlinking can trim quite a bit of
> space used as well as giving you snapshotting. Backuppc I think uses a
> similar methodology, but it is overkill for my purposes.

For folks using this sort of backup, Do take a look at the "rsnapshot"
software at rsnapshot.org. It's reasonably well structured and can
save a lot of work trying to organize a set of efficiently hardlinked
backups..


Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-23 Thread Yasha Karant
Apologies, but I do not understand the "+1"; is this approval to post 
additional commentary on this matter, or, again, is this discussion not 
suitable for this list? I did not initiate the matter of the ACM view or 
curricular recommendations, in contrast to that of an information 
technology approach; but there seem to be fundamental misconceptions 
concerning the fields of computer science and engineering in the 
commentary, just as I have met some "applied" physicists who have 
misconceptions about fundamental physics (e.g., high energy physics and 
general relativity).  (I mention fundamental physics because that is the 
basic reason for the existence of both Fermilab and CERN -- at both 
institutions, EL is the operating environment to enable the research, 
rather than DEC VMS of a previous epoch.  Those in the EL community gain 
from this use.)


For Lamar, who evidently has looked at my not-recently-updated academic 
home page, the item you mention is posted there from another source (I 
do not have any graphics artists to support my work, and do not have the 
spare time to do the stick figure material you see) that I thought was 
credited.  I use this introduction to AES (and cryptography in general), 
along with a Conan Doyle short story, as my part of the "dog and pony 
show" my department does on an annual basis to recruit high school 
students to come to our ABET accredited programs as undergraduate 
majors. If a person cannot handle mathematics, including that behind 
encryption, then, regrettably, computer science and engineering probably 
is not a good fit (nor would physics be).  When I teach a course 
involving encryption, I cover it with greater depth than what you see in 
the cartoon -- but I still have the students read the cartoon to get 
some background before I teach the mathematics and then the cryptography.


On 02/22/2016 11:29 AM, William Shu wrote:
Yasha/Lamar + 1 for your views on these comparisons, and Lamar's 
university's conclusions (and justifications thereto) when done, on or 
off list.


William.



On Monday, February 22, 2016 6:54 PM, Lamar Owen  wrote:


On 02/22/2016 11:50 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:


> would it be appropriate for me to post a response? The differences
> are deep and fundamental.
>

I can't answer that; a moderator would need to.  I would personally
welcome a direct e-mail with the explanation myself, as my .edu is
currently investigating 'CS' curricula (where 'CS' is the
Google/Microsoft version and not the ACM version of 'CS').

And for the list, one of the more fascinating things you are likely to
ever read is Yasha Karant's 'A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced
Encryption Standard (AES)' which is available at
http://www.csci.csusb.edu/ykarant/cryptography/aes-cartoon.pdf ; I
certainly found it interesting.

My paragraph was simply there to let you know that there are probably
many more IT folk here than CS folk, and IT folk tend to have a very
hands-on and practical 'here's the standard way to do it' answer and an
eye towards maintainability, and all of that is just a part of the IT
mindset.  Neither is the more correct mindset; the mindsets are just
different.  A CIS-mindset is yet even more different, but that's not
nearly as well represented here, nor are the CE or SE mindsets, but the
IT mindset is very much predominant here.  As well, it was to serve to
let the list as a whole know that there are different mindsets out there
that are very different from the typical sysadmin IT-centric mindset.







Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-22 Thread William Shu
Yasha/Lamar + 1 for your views on these comparisons, and Lamar's university's 
conclusions (and justifications thereto) when done, on or off list.
William.


On Monday, February 22, 2016 6:54 PM, Lamar Owen  wrote:
 

 On 02/22/2016 11:50 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:


> would it be appropriate for me to post a response?  The differences 
> are deep and fundamental.
>

I can't answer that; a moderator would need to.  I would personally 
welcome a direct e-mail with the explanation myself, as my .edu is 
currently investigating 'CS' curricula (where 'CS' is the 
Google/Microsoft version and not the ACM version of 'CS').

And for the list, one of the more fascinating things you are likely to 
ever read is Yasha Karant's 'A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced 
Encryption Standard (AES)' which is available at 
http://www.csci.csusb.edu/ykarant/cryptography/aes-cartoon.pdf ; I 
certainly found it interesting.

My paragraph was simply there to let you know that there are probably 
many more IT folk here than CS folk, and IT folk tend to have a very 
hands-on and practical 'here's the standard way to do it' answer and an 
eye towards maintainability, and all of that is just a part of the IT 
mindset.  Neither is the more correct mindset; the mindsets are just 
different.  A CIS-mindset is yet even more different, but that's not 
nearly as well represented here, nor are the CE or SE mindsets, but the 
IT mindset is very much predominant here.  As well, it was to serve to 
let the list as a whole know that there are different mindsets out there 
that are very different from the typical sysadmin IT-centric mindset.


  

Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-22 Thread Lamar Owen

On 02/22/2016 11:50 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
Actually, it has a great deal to do with the original post; however, 
your exposition of a workable methodology is reasonably clear and will 
be the mechanism for going forward and I thank you for your clarity. 


You're welcome.  My methods were developed through long experience and 
much trial and error.  Very scientific: hypothesize, experiment, verify 
or nullify.  Lather, rinse, repeat.


Presumably, to move existing to-save partitions from the older file 
system structure to the more current structure is not possible with an 
"imaging" method, such as dd, but will work with a full backup of an 
existing high level file system mounted upon a "physical" partition" 
(e. g., using tar perhaps with lossless compression) and then restore.


I actually use an rsync mirror (the copy is done with rsync -avHAX, 
although symlinks can be disturbed if not careful) to another disk; an 
rsync backup is restored quite simply, and using hardlinking can trim 
quite a bit of space used as well as giving you snapshotting. Backuppc I 
think uses a similar methodology, but it is overkill for my purposes.


Filesystem backup/restore tools such as dump and restore or using 
tarfiles are doable, but in my case the tarball would be too large to be 
manageable.  But using tar with stdout and stdin over an ssh pipe is 
very efficient.  The first book in the 'Linux Server Hacks' series has a 
lot of this and is a good 'cookbook' for these types of things and doing 
them the 'standard' way.




The second point you raise -- the difference between computer science 
and engineering versus information technology -- requires a response 
and clarification, as you posted your views to a public list (anyone 
may view/read). 


While this is off-topic for the list as a whole, it might serve as some 
clarification to many on the list who are very deep in the IT mindset 
and for whom the CS mindset seems alien.


However, as your comment is off the mission of this list (as I have 
discovered, engineering design issues are not for this list, but 
rather mostly technology), 


More to the point:  since SL is a rebuild of an already engineered 
system, the engineering being done isn't being done on this list. We're 
just putting together already engineered pieces in a creative way; there 
is plenty of creativity, but it's just a different sort of creativity.


would it be appropriate for me to post a response?  The differences 
are deep and fundamental.




I can't answer that; a moderator would need to.  I would personally 
welcome a direct e-mail with the explanation myself, as my .edu is 
currently investigating 'CS' curricula (where 'CS' is the 
Google/Microsoft version and not the ACM version of 'CS').


And for the list, one of the more fascinating things you are likely to 
ever read is Yasha Karant's 'A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced 
Encryption Standard (AES)' which is available at 
http://www.csci.csusb.edu/ykarant/cryptography/aes-cartoon.pdf ; I 
certainly found it interesting.


My paragraph was simply there to let you know that there are probably 
many more IT folk here than CS folk, and IT folk tend to have a very 
hands-on and practical 'here's the standard way to do it' answer and an 
eye towards maintainability, and all of that is just a part of the IT 
mindset.  Neither is the more correct mindset; the mindsets are just 
different.  A CIS-mindset is yet even more different, but that's not 
nearly as well represented here, nor are the CE or SE mindsets, but the 
IT mindset is very much predominant here.  As well, it was to serve to 
let the list as a whole know that there are different mindsets out there 
that are very different from the typical sysadmin IT-centric mindset.


Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-22 Thread Yasha Karant

On 02/19/2016 08:09 AM, Lamar Owen wrote:

On 02/18/2016 03:16 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:


As the "old" partition scheme is increasingly considered "obsolete", 
for the new layout scheme, how does one not overwrite the entire file 
system other than having two separate hard drives, a "system" one and 
and "non-system" (e.g., /home ...) one (for which the "hard drives" 
could be multiple drives in a RAID configuration, etc., but not 
"system")?


While this has nothing to do with what you originally posted, I'll 
bite.  In my case I have set up a separate logical volume for /home 
from the one where / is mounted.  Whether this LV is on the same 
volume group as the LV for / is irrelevant; in my case they are on the 
same VG, and I tell (told, in the case of one 'upgrade') the installer 
to use a particular existing LV for /, a particular partition for 
/boot, another LV for swap, and the last LV for /home.  All are set to 
format *except* the one for /home. It took a bit of time to get used 
to the EL7 installer's way of doing mount points, but now that I've 
used it a few times I really prefer it to the old way for many (but 
not all) use cases.


But my question is 'why do you always seem to pick the hard way?' to 
do things.  (I already have a good idea why, actually, as it has to do 
with a basic difference between 'Computer Science' and 'Information 
Technology' (as defined by the ACM's 2008 Computing Curricula 
Standards) and a basic difference between the CS mindset and the IT 
mindset.)  Just understand that most of the advice you're going to get 
here is squarely in the IT (as defined by the ACM) mindset, including 
from me.
Actually, it has a great deal to do with the original post; however, 
your exposition of a workable methodology is reasonably clear and will 
be the mechanism for going forward and I thank you for your clarity.  
Presumably, to move existing to-save partitions from the older file 
system structure to the more current structure is not possible with an 
"imaging" method, such as dd, but will work with a full backup of an 
existing high level file system mounted upon a "physical" partition" (e. 
g., using tar perhaps with lossless compression) and then restore.


The second point you raise -- the difference between computer science 
and engineering versus information technology -- requires a response and 
clarification, as you posted your views to a public list (anyone may 
view/read).  However, as your comment is off the mission of this list 
(as I have discovered, engineering design issues are not for this list, 
but rather mostly technology), would it be appropriate for me to post a 
response?  The differences are deep and fundamental.


Yasha Karant


Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-19 Thread Lamar Owen

On 02/18/2016 03:16 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:


As the "old" partition scheme is increasingly considered "obsolete", 
for the new layout scheme, how does one not overwrite the entire file 
system other than having two separate hard drives, a "system" one and 
and "non-system" (e.g., /home ...) one (for which the "hard drives" 
could be multiple drives in a RAID configuration, etc., but not "system")?


While this has nothing to do with what you originally posted, I'll 
bite.  In my case I have set up a separate logical volume for /home from 
the one where / is mounted.  Whether this LV is on the same volume group 
as the LV for / is irrelevant; in my case they are on the same VG, and I 
tell (told, in the case of one 'upgrade') the installer to use a 
particular existing LV for /, a particular partition for /boot, another 
LV for swap, and the last LV for /home.  All are set to format *except* 
the one for /home.  It took a bit of time to get used to the EL7 
installer's way of doing mount points, but now that I've used it a few 
times I really prefer it to the old way for many (but not all) use cases.


But my question is 'why do you always seem to pick the hard way?' to do 
things.  (I already have a good idea why, actually, as it has to do with 
a basic difference between 'Computer Science' and 'Information 
Technology' (as defined by the ACM's 2008 Computing Curricula Standards) 
and a basic difference between the CS mindset and the IT mindset.)  Just 
understand that most of the advice you're going to get here is squarely 
in the IT (as defined by the ACM) mindset, including from me.


Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-18 Thread Yasha Karant
As I am using SL 7.1, the answer below should suffice (assuming it works 
seemingly as advertised).
I fully understand from past experience that EL, unlike SLES, does not 
allow an upgrade in place for major releases,
only minor releases (e.g., upgrade in place SL 7.1 to SL 7.m for 
whatever m turns out to be).  For SL N to SL N+1, etc., one must be 
willing to sacrifice whatever is on the partitions that must be 
overwritten (/ , /boot , /usr, /bin/ , ...) but not on what can be 
"untouched" during the N to N+1 process (e.g., /opt , /usr/local if this 
is a separate partition from /usr , ... ).


As the "old" partition scheme is increasingly considered "obsolete", for 
the new layout scheme, how does one not overwrite the entire file system 
other than having two separate hard drives, a "system" one and and 
"non-system" (e.g., /home ...) one (for which the "hard drives" could be 
multiple drives in a RAID configuration, etc., but not "system")?



On 02/17/2016 07:12 PM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:

If you;re already on SL 7.x, you should be able to mount the CD and do
"yum -y update/mnt/[whatever]/Packages/sl-release*.rpm" and get most
of the changes availabale.


<>

Re: 7.2 update instructions

2016-02-17 Thread Nico Kadel-Garcia
On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 2:15 AM, Yasha Karant  wrote:
> I have burned the current production SL 7.2 4 Gbyte install DVD. The DVD
> boots but does not seem to have an upgrade option, only an install option.
> Note that I plan to overwrite all files/partitions used by the system (but
> not /home , /opt , /usr/local that is a separate partition from /usr, and
> the like).

This has been heavily discussed over in the CentOS lists. The
dependencies for updating a RHEL server to RHEL 7 are potentially
dangerous enough that RHEL is recommending against it. They provide a
utility, but it's proven pretty fragile if you've been installing
non-standard components, as I've seen you attest to various times on
this list. And the regression testing for that kind of major, major
upgrade to systemd based service management and the re-architecture of
NetworkManager and the switch from "/bin" to a symlink to "/usr/bin"
is just plain nasty to cope with.

So bringing the published tools into Scientific Linux compatibility is
a serious, serious potential for one heck of a lot of work.

If your host is already SL 7.1, you should be able to simply use the
"scientific/7/" repos to get the updated


> Currently, a number of add-on repositories (e.g., elrepo) for 7.1 are
> searched by the software installer.  Will these be saved and used for 7.2 or
> must these manually either be saved or reinstalled after the 7.2 update?

Those are mostly using "epel/7/", "elrepo/7/", etc., and should not be
a problem if you are already on SL 7.x.

> Are there instructions (URL?) for the upgrade, or is there a mechanism to
> invoke the DVD-based installer to do the update?  I do not want to use an
> Internet update because of the latency -- I want to do the upgrade from
> local (DVD) media.  Is this possible?
>
> Yasha Karant

If you;re already on SL 7.x, you should be able to mount the CD and do
"yum -y update /mnt/[whatever]/Packages/sl-release*.rpm" and get most
of the changes availabale.


7.2 update instructions [2]

2016-02-17 Thread Yasha Karant

I have found the following:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/249330/centos-7-2-now-to-update

CentOS 7 (through and including 7.1) offered the

|Applications | System Tools | Software Update|

applet. This applet allowed users to update CentOS 7.

Where is the applet in 7.2 v1511? I do not see that anymore.

Yes, I know of |yum -y update|. I executed the |yum -y update| command, 
which is how I got from CentOS 7 to CentOS 7 (7.2 v1511).


1 Answer

This is a bug in the Upstream(Redhat) which has been reported: 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1290868


You can solve this issue by installing the |gnome-packagekit-updater| 
package with this command.


|sudo yum install gnome-packagekit-updater |

Once this package is installed you will find the ICON where it used to 
be. i.e: Applications | System Tools | Software Update


You can also start the GUI Updater from command line once it is 
installed by invoking this command:


|sudo gpk-update-viewer |

End quote.

I understand that the above applies to CentOS 7.2, but SL 7.2 and all 
other RHEL re-distributions, not binaries licensed from Red Hat for fee, 
now must go through the "Red Hat subsidiary" CentOS for the source from 
which to build a distro (e.g., SL 7.2) . Thus, the same procedure should 
work if one knows how to point the upgrade path to a local DVD.   Note 
that I use MATE, not Gnome, as my primary GUI system.  Must I use Gnome 
for the above correctly to function, or will an invocation from a 
command line in a MATE terminal GUI application suffice?


Has anyone done the above, and, if so, what cautions (warnings, 
"gotchas") are needed?


Note that I have attempted to install the above gnome-packagekit-updater 
with the following error diagnostics and failure:


[root@jb344 ykarant]# yum install gnome-packagekit-updater
Loaded plugins: langpacks
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package gnome-packagekit-updater.x86_64 0:3.14.3-5.el7 will be 
installed
--> Processing Dependency: gnome-packagekit(x86-64) = 3.14.3-5.el7 for 
package: gnome-packagekit-updater-3.14.3-5.el7.x86_64


[snip -- very long list -- 294 RPM files updated]

Total  5.1 MB/s | 340 MB  01:07
Running transaction check
Running transaction test


Transaction check error:
  file /usr/lib/systemd/system/blk-availability.service from install of 
device-mapper-7:1.02.107-5.el7_2.1.x86_64 conflicts with file from 
package lvm2-7:2.02.105-14.el7.x86_64
  file /usr/sbin/blkdeactivate from install of 
device-mapper-7:1.02.107-5.el7_2.1.x86_64 conflicts with file from 
package lvm2-7:2.02.105-14.el7.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man8/blkdeactivate.8.gz from install of 
device-mapper-7:1.02.107-5.el7_2.1.x86_64 conflicts with file from 
package lvm2-7:2.02.105-14.el7.x86_64


Error Summary
-

[root@jb344 ykarant]#

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Yasha Karant

On 02/16/2016 11:15 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
I have burned the current production SL 7.2 4 Gbyte install DVD. The 
DVD boots but does not seem to have an upgrade option, only an install 
option.  Note that I plan to overwrite all files/partitions used by 
the system (but not /home , /opt , /usr/local that is a separate 
partition from /usr, and the like).


Currently, a number of add-on repositories (e.g., elrepo) for 7.1 are 
searched by the software installer.  Will these be saved and used for 
7.2 or must these manually either be saved or reinstalled after the 
7.2 update?


Are there instructions (URL?) for the upgrade, or is there a mechanism 
to invoke the DVD-based installer to do the update?  I do not want to 
use an Internet update because of the latency -- I want to do the 
upgrade from local (DVD) media.  Is this possible?


Yasha Karant


<>

7.2 update instructions

2016-02-16 Thread Yasha Karant
I have burned the current production SL 7.2 4 Gbyte install DVD. The DVD 
boots but does not seem to have an upgrade option, only an install 
option.  Note that I plan to overwrite all files/partitions used by the 
system (but not /home , /opt , /usr/local that is a separate partition 
from /usr, and the like).


Currently, a number of add-on repositories (e.g., elrepo) for 7.1 are 
searched by the software installer.  Will these be saved and used for 
7.2 or must these manually either be saved or reinstalled after the 7.2 
update?


Are there instructions (URL?) for the upgrade, or is there a mechanism 
to invoke the DVD-based installer to do the update?  I do not want to 
use an Internet update because of the latency -- I want to do the 
upgrade from local (DVD) media.  Is this possible?


Yasha Karant