CentOS - May 2007 - Is it possible/advisable to run CentOS 4.4 and 5.0 on the same box

We are in the process of transiting from 4.4 to 5.0 and I may need to
be able to switch back and forth for a while.  Is it possible (or
advisable) to run both 4.4 and 5.0 on the same machine, or does that
involve a lot of reinstalling/repartitioning and a fair amount of pain
(I have only one disk on the test machine for this purpose).

I'd rather just go to 5.0, but that's not up to me at the moment.

Thanks.

-- 
Mark Hull-Richter
DATAllegro (www.datallegro.com)
85 Enterprise, Second Floor, Aliso Viejo, CA  92656
949-680-3082 - Office     949-680-3001 - fax

Mark Hull-Richter wrote:
> We are in the process of transiting from 4.4 to 5.0 and I may need to
> be able to switch back and forth for a while.  Is it possible (or
> advisable) to run both 4.4 and 5.0 on the same machine, or does that
> involve a lot of reinstalling/repartitioning and a fair amount of pain
> (I have only one disk on the test machine for this purpose).
If it's just for the purpose of supporting software, I'd use some kind 
of virtualization and put 4.x in a VM hosted by 5.x.  The only time you 
need a real machine (instead of a VM) is when you have some hardware 
level requirement.

I use VMware's free VMware Server to keep many Linuxen around, which I 
need so I can build RPMs for each of the many platforms we have in the 
field.  Once you have a VM solution set up, you find that you then 
create still more VMs for testing and so on.  It's liberating.