Questions for Redhat people

[robert]

I'm really new to Redhat (I have v9 installed) - I use Suse at home and work, and so far Redhat looks a lot harder to configure.

Mostly I'm wondering about installing and upgrading software. Suse has the authoritative yast program - you can view suggested upgrades, chose which to install, and the system keeps working rock-solid.

Suse makes it VERY easy to make sure your system has the latest security patches.

But what about Redhat?

Has anyone used "apt-get upgrade" on a Redhat 9 installation here? That sounds like a very powerful command - should it be trusted? And then, even if it does work, does it generally get the latest security fixes?

Thanks!

[dub]

Robert,

Although I'm not a redhat guy (debian all the way), the program
"yum" has been highly recommended to me for doing all such
maintenance. It can be downloaded from http://freshrpms.net.

[arthur]

Hi, personally I always use the apt-get command for updating/upgrading. I have always found it easy to use, reliable and fast. One point that I would say is that if you do use it then always do 'apt-get update' first before doing the 'apt-get upgrade'.
regards, Arthur

[retep]

The apt and yum tools manage rpm dependancies.

They look at a repository of RPMs. And figure from that repository what RPMs are needed to install other RPMs.

The RPMs that are used are the same regardless of whether you install them via rpm from the redhat site, or via apt or via yum.

I tried yum. But it just seemed a bit slower to use than apt (e.g. downloads lots of little header files wheras apt seems to grab just a single bzipped meta file).

Also, from a consistency point of view apt makes a lot of sense for RimuHosting to provide a common installer app across all our distros.

So, read the apt howto (http://rimuhosting.com/support/microhowtolist.jsp?t=apt#apt). Run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and you'll have all the latest patches installed. It'll tell you what it's going to do. Then just say yes.

[misha]

So, read the apt howto (http://rimuhosting.com/support/microhowtolist.jsp?t=apt#apt). Run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and you'll have all the latest patches installed. It'll tell you what it's going to do. Then just say yes.

I have built Postfix-with-MySQL-support (2.0.16) rpm and installed it on my WBEL3 distribution. Now apt-get wants to upgrade this package.

How can I find the version of rpm apt-get wants to install without downloading source (`apt-get source postfix`)?

Thanks
Misha