How to switch from RHN to Fedora

WGroleau · #1 18th August 2012, 07:49 PM

Vendor of an expensive lab tool provided a controller with RedHat 5 but failed to register it. So yum refuses to install mbadm. Source code website is broken.

Is there an easy way to make yum get things from fedora and switch back when we get a chance to beat on our vendor for the RHN subscription?

epperson · #2 19th August 2012, 12:58 AM

I think you want Centos repos, not fedora. IIRC, RHEL5 maps to somewhere around Fedora 8, long since unsupported.

The thread below on using Centos repos in RHEL5 passes my sanity check on a read through, although I have not tested it. Everything except the last post about Oracle and Centos 4 which makes no sense and has nothing to do with the rest of the thread.

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/...?topic_id=7905

WGroleau · #3 19th August 2012, 01:28 AM

Oh, thanks. Somehow I got the impression from somewhere on the RedHat site that RH and Fedora were the same but for branding.

smr54 · #4 19th August 2012, 02:11 AM

No, RH and CentOS, ScientificLinux, and Oracle Linux are almost identical. I think CentOS is the one that has binary compatibility as its primary aim, but the others also come close. However, Oracle only gives limited access to its free version--as I recall, only security and other essential updates--at least that's according to some recent thing of theirs--when they first came out with Oracle Linux, I think they only gave you access to what was on the original CD (but I could be wrong about that.)

epperson · #5 19th August 2012, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smr54

No, RH and CentOS, ScientificLinux, and Oracle Linux are almost identical. I think CentOS is the one that has binary compatibility as its primary aim, but the others also come close. However, Oracle only gives limited access to its free version--as I recall, only security and other essential updates--at least that's according to some recent thing of theirs--when they first came out with Oracle Linux, I think they only gave you access to what was on the original CD (but I could be wrong about that.)

Actually Oracle Enterprise Linux has diverged fairly sharply from RHEL lately. They are bundling in their proprietary ASM code, among other things. Also note that if you register a Red Hat system to ULN (the OEL equivalent of RHN) support, the path back to RHN is not easy. Oracle replaces the yum linkage with a proprietary up2date, and it ain't purty.