up2date doesn't seem to install latest version

[stevenriz]

I would like to install glibc > 2.4 and currently there is 2.3 on the system. Up2date only wants to install the latest 2.3.x revisions and all its dependencies. Is there a way to have up2date go to higher versions?

 

[lgarner]

Has 2.4x been released by RH for your version? They typically only release patches to RHEL, not new versions.

 

[stevenriz]

thanks for the reply. I see it for FC but nothing for rhel which is what we are running on this system. I will keep checking around.

So what you are telling me is if glibc-2.4-x was developed for rhel 4 and I ran up2date glibc on that system, then 2.4-x would get installed onto my system.... ??

 

[sleipnir214]

You must keep in mind that up2date does not search all RPM repositories when looking for pdates. It searches a selected set of repositories set up by your Linux distribution's vendor. Chances are, your vendor is not interested in making sure that your distribution is running the bleeding-edge software, but rather is interested in making sure that any updates pass regression testing -- that they are stable and will work with your distribution's environment. So as far as up2date knows, there are no versions of glibc greater than the ones it wants to install.

Because distribution vendors find stability important, the revisions of updates available through up2date or yum or apt tend lag behind the revisions available a software publishers' websites. Now, if we were talking about something that is available from a publisher whose sofware is largely independent of your core distribution, for example Apache, I'd say download what you need from the publisher and install it. glibc, however, is important to a great deal of your system. Unless you know what you are doing and know how to undo anything you screw up, it might be best to let up2date operate in peace.


Do you need glibc 2.4 to support some piece of software?



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[stevenriz]

well I found a way around it. Yes, I am trying (in another post) to get ntfs support on my 2.6.9-42.ELsmp kernel and am having a bit if a problem. I simply want to copy a bunch of data from the usb drive to a linux disk. I can sftp it but that will take forever...

 

[lgarner]

That's correct, and I agree with sleipnir214- I'd hesitate to upgrade something as integral as glibc to a version beyond what the distribution supports.

FYI, RHEL5 has been released and has glibc 2.5. You can get it under your current subscription, but of course it's a full OS upgrade.

 

[stevenriz]

now that doesn't sound like a bad idea, since this is a test machine.. I may take a look at that. Thanks!
steve

 

[thedaver]

Another learning for you is that RH has a somewhat peculiar way of handling "important" updates.

You may find that 90% of the stuff that is included in application version N+1 is actually backported by RH into application N.3.2.1010294

Now, glibc is not likely to fall into that case, but I certainly have seen RH do this with something like 'sshd' or other daemons.

The other learning, I think mentioned above, is that Fedora is more bleeding edge than RedHat EL. RH EL is born and bred for maturity and stability.

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