CentOS - Oct 2008 - Putting CentOS 5.2 kernel on CentOS 4.x

Has anyone tried to install a CentOS 5.x kernel on a CentOS 4.x system?  Is
this doable?  I"m aware of the dependencies but I'm curious if anyone
has
done this successfully.

Basically, we have a few hundred 4.x systems that cannot be upgraded to 5.x,
yet, but we do need the kernel update to fix the XFS problem as described
here: http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=3125
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on 10-3-2008 2:48 PM Fong Vang spake the following:
> Has anyone tried to install a CentOS 5.x kernel on a CentOS 4.x system? 
> Is this doable?  I"m aware of the dependencies but I'm curious if
anyone
> has done this successfully.
> 
> Basically, we have a few hundred 4.x systems that cannot be upgraded to
> 5.x, yet, but we do need the kernel update to fix the XFS problem as
> described here: http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=3125
> 
You would be on your own with that! Do you have a non-critical system you can
test on? You would probably need to get the source rpm and build it on a 4.x
devel system.


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On Fri, 2008-10-03 at 16:21 -0700, Scott Silva wrote:
> on 10-3-2008 2:48 PM Fong Vang spake the following:
> > Has anyone tried to install a CentOS 5.x kernel on a CentOS 4.x
system?
> > Is this doable?  I"m aware of the dependencies but I'm
curious if anyone
> > has done this successfully.
> > 
> > Basically, we have a few hundred 4.x systems that cannot be upgraded
to
> > 5.x, yet, but we do need the kernel update to fix the XFS problem as
> > described here: http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=3125
> > 
> You would be on your own with that! Do you have a non-critical system you
can
> test on? You would probably need to get the source rpm and build it on a
4.x
> devel system.
Hmmm... Reaching through the half-heimers-fogged brain...

ISTR that the critical item is the APIs (binary compat) provided by
glibc. If so, the glibc-2.5-24.i686 on 5.2 and the 2.3.4-2.41 are
probably different enough that binary compatibility would be broken.

Further, compiling the recent kernel on 4.x might be also difficult
because the source compatibility might be broken (although not certain)
due to parameter changes introduced in the newer kernel version.

But, that's a whole bunch of "ifs" that may be worth
investigating,
depending on available time, resources and time constraints.

If one does get a clean compile and no apps break, very fortunate. If
the source must be changed, be sure to maintain diffs that can be
applied when new versions with critical fixes (like security) appear.

Overall, my personal bias would be to avoid the whole scenario.
> <snip sig stuff>
If any of my above is FUD, please forgive. It's hard to recall so much
from so long ago.

-- 
Bill