On Wed, Dec 27, 2006 at 10:03:52AM -0800, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> 
> So, the question:  If you had to pick a current distro that is closest
> to what SL5 will eventually be, would you start with SL4.2 or with
> Fedora Core 6?  

Since I wrote that, I have been having a fun time porting stuff to
Scientific Linux 4.4 .   There are some programs that worked with
2.4.22, and work with >= 2.6.17, but do not work with 2.6.9 . Fooey!

   However:

I also discovered that RHEL5 beta 2 is available (!) at:

  ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/RHEL5-Beta2/

I made some CDs, and did an install on a spare drive, and RHEL5b2
more or less works.  The gnome logout process does not have a checkbox
for "Save Current Setup", but I've found no other annoyances so far.

So, new plan.  I will duplicate the SL4.4 drive onto the spare drive,
then try an RHEL5 upgrade on that drive and see what breaks.  If that
works, I may continue my upgrade/rebuild work on that drive.  

Many of the RPM packages currently installed by RHEL5 beta 2 still
carry a "fc6" identification, instead of an "el5" identification,
showing the close kinship with Fedora Core 6.  They appear to be
identical otherwise.   Besides some RPM naming differences, el5
and fc6 are about 80% similar, with some minor rev differences
on the remainder.  Very few big changes.

There is 99%+ similarity between RHEL beta 2 and the RPMs for the
"very alpha" SL5 .  Most of the differences are the SL5 extras,
and some are some configuration stuff (like artwork) and docs.
There will probably be more divergence when SL5 is finished.

Questions:  What are the implications when I do the final SL5 upgrade
when that becomes available?  Will RPM consider the package name
differences important, and perhaps fail on the dependencies? 
Anything else to watch out for?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs