Time for a tech post. I had the privilege of upgrading an ancient Red Hat 9 Linux box to CentOS 4.5. Red Hat Linux has been EOL for a very long time, and was superceded by Fedora, which has had seven major releases. That’s the equivalent of running Windows 3.1 Well, not quite Anyhow, the box at hand appeared to be a custom web server. I will outline the steps I used to successfully upgrade it to CentOS 4.5.

1. Download the CentOS 4.5 CD set or DVD image from www.centos.org.
2. Put in CD 1 or the DVD image.
3. Reboot the old Red Hat 9 box and ensure that the BIOS allows booting from the CD/DVD drive.
4. Enter the following at the linux boot prompt and press Enter: linux upgradeany
5. The system will happily hum along while Red Hat 9 is upgraded to CentOS 4.5.
6. If ‘yum’ wasn’t installed, you will need to install it:
rpm -ivh http://centos.arcticnetwork.ca/4.5/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-elementtree-1.2.6-5.el4.centos.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh http://centos.arcticnetwork.ca/4.5/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/sqlite-3.3.6-2.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh http://centos.arcticnetwork.ca/4.5/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-sqlite-1.1.7-1.2.1.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh http://centos.arcticnetwork.ca/4.5/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-urlgrabber-2.9.8-2.noarch.rpm
rpm -ivh http://centos.arcticnetwork.ca/4.5/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/yum-2.4.3-3.el4.centos.noarch.rpm
7. Now, run the following command and press Enter: yum update
8. Allow yum to run and update the required packages. Reboot if yum downloads and installs a new kernel.
9. Since the box in question had a custom Apache and PHP configuration, I reinstalled them manually:
yum install httpd
yum install php
yum install mysql
yum install mysql-server
yum install php-mysql
10. I had to update the MySQL configuration to point to the correct socket:
Update my.cnf:
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
instead of
socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
and add the following to use your existing database passwords
old_passwords=1
11. Copy any required PHP extensions to new system path:
cp -R /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/* /usr/lib/php4
12. Edit /etc/php.ini:
error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE
extension=mysql.so
13. Finally, set services to start up automatically:
chkconfig –level 345 httpd on
chkconfig –level 345 mysqld on
chkconfig –level 345 sendmail on
14. There you have it. The server should be happily running CentOS 4.5 now. Remember to keep it up-to-date by running yum update regularly.

Best of all, I upgraded the entire OS remotely using SSH. Upgrading your OS remotely is usually not a good idea, but if you know what you’re doing, go for it! Ensure you backup any custom/modified configuration files just in case you press a wrong key during the upgrade! The upgrade worked well, with the exception of recompiling eAccelerator (to work with PHP 5.2.2) and updating a line (see below) of code in WordPress to make everything work smoothly.

Immediately following the upgrade, I noticed that my WordPress blog was loading very slowly and I also noticed random strings of hexadecimal characters at the top of the main blog page.

If you upgrade your server to Ubuntu Server 7.04 and run WordPress 2.1.x, ensure that you change line 832 in wp-includes/functions.php to the following (all on one line):

@header($_SERVER["SERVER_PROTOCOL"].” “.$header.” “.$text, true, $header);

Once you make the above change, your blog should load normally.

Update (5.15.2007):

With WordPress 2.2 (released today), the aforementioned WordPress fix is now irrelevant.

In the Ubuntu 6.10 / Edgy release notes, Ubuntu recommends the following procedure to upgrade from Dapper to Edgy:

# apt-get dist-upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade

That will not work. Why? Because sources.list needs to be updated first (and apt-get update needs to be run beforehand).

Prepare to update sources.list by issuing the following command:

# sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Replace all instances of dapper with edgy. My updated sources.list looked as follows:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted

Once you save the file, run the following string of commands:

# sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Go for coffee. Run around the block. Play a game. You get the picture. It will take awhile to download all of the required packages (255 in my case).

Now, run the following commands to ensure everything was installed correctly.? The last line deletes the downloaded files from apt’s cache, freeing up disk space.

# sudo apt-get -f install
# sudo dpkg –configure -a
# sudo apt-get clean

Finally, cross your fingers and run the following command:

# sudo reboot

Hopefully, everything worked and your Ubuntu server is running the latest release!

If asked to overwrite a modified configuration file, reply ‘N’. Otherwise, you might end up with a broken system. In my case, I also had to recompile eAccelerator 0.9.5-rc1 as it was compiled for the version of PHP 5 (5.1.2) included with Ubuntu Server 6.06.

With all the recent price cuts in the CPU world, I decided it would be a good time to upgrade my Pentium 4 3.2 GHz system. It was fast, but when one multitasks like I do, nothing is fast enough.

I decided to go with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU paired with an ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA motherboard. As the motherboard supports both DDR and DDR2 RAM, I went with an 1 GB (dual channel) Mushkin EM2 DDR2-667 4-4-4-12 kit. What’s unique about the ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA is its ability to support both AGP and newer PCI-E video cards, as well as DDR and DDR2 RAM (read: one or the other). The motherboard allows for greater flexibility when upgrading existing systems, allowing one to upgrade to newer technology over time.

My new hardware configuration quenches my thirst for speed. Point. Click. Done. That’s the way it should be. A real-life example: 52 Windows XP updates installed in 2 minutes flat. Impressive.

Next, my youngest sister’s computer. Athlon XP 1900+ with 512 MB of RAM. She said she was perfectly happy with it, but I knew otherwise. I decided to get her an AMD X2 4200+ CPU paired with an ASRock 939DUAL-SATA2 motherboard, while using 1 GB (dual channel) of Samsung DDR400 SDRAM from my P4 3.2 GHz system. Again, the ASRock 939DUAL-SATA2 is an unique motherboard in that it allows one to upgrade to newer technologies over time. In the future, I can throw in an AMD AM2 upgrade board and add some DDR2 RAM. With the availability of both AGP and PCI-E slots, the aging AGP video card can be upgraded to PCI-E in the future, if need be.

Now, the cost. Two systems upgraded for under $900 CDN, including shipping and taxes. Not bad

PS. I take back my previous comment on ASRock (a division of Asus) motherboards. Three ASRock motherboards later, I’d still buy another Kudos to ASRock for going after a niche market of PC upgraders!