CentOS 5.0 is out...

The long waited release has happened - CentOS 5.0 is officially out!

The good news is that the base packages are recompiled and are out - extras/addons repos are still empty. the kernel is fairly new 2.6.18 this means the OS has SAS support - yehaa :) Since most IBM 366 are running low on supply, the new IBM 3550 are in (well, it still needs testing a bit, but it at least boots up properly) :) This is a huge step forward but there is still a long way to go. This might give some idea on how long way...

Out of curiosity I tried to upgrade one of my 4.4 servers to 5.0, but it did not go well. After removing around 40 packages I finally got yum to upgrade the kernel and the rest of the system. Well as a result I found out that the upgrade process died in the middle of the process. Rpm had removed its libs and tried to install new ones - it crashed with unresolved deps. Last test was to boot the machine, and it didn't go well also - it crashed on a attempt to load LSI Fusion MPT driver :( As it was a test the results are not promising. Also the lack of apt and apt support for repos (I really really hate yum and up2date). Yum is too talkative and generates several race conditions wen doing the upgrade, so it lacks the needed silence to do scripting!

The conclusion - It works, looks better than 4.4, is more resource hungry (at least 512MB to do a graphical install), lack of support for apt and empty extras-, conttrib-, plus repos, boots faster (didn't take time with stop watch, but it looked faster at least). This means its to crude for enterprise wide adoption, but it shows great promise, next tests will probably be done in few months to see if it has improved.

PS! if any CentOS developers see this post, PLEAS PLEAS PLEAS port apt to CentOS 5, yum just does not cut it and alternatives are always good to have.

technorati tags:CentOS, 5, SAS, IBM, support, released, developers, apt, yum

Blogged with Flock