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Gnanam
Asked: 2010-11-10 03:10:41 +0800 CST

Is it OK to install a RPM built for lower OS version onto a higher OS version?

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Our production server is running sqlite-3.3.6-2 on CentOS release 5.2 (Final).

We're planning to upgrade SQLite to the latest v3.7.3 (atleast v3.5+). But there is no RPM available in SQLite website and not able to find one from google search also.

But I'm finding v3.5+ RPM for RHEL3 here. Since we're running CentOS5 64-bit,

  1. Is it OK to install a RHEL3 64-bit RPM package on a CentOS5 64-bit server?
  2. In case, if it can be installed, will there be any implications/side-effects?

In general, can we install a RPM built for lower version of OS (ex: RHEL3) on a higher version of OS (ex: RHEL5)?

centos redhat installation rpm centos5

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The answer in my general experience is "if it works". RPMs have depdency checking built in; they know if they need a particular version of glibc, or php, or mysql, or foo, bar or baz. If you do an 

    rpm -ivh fribble-4.5.6-el3.i386.rpm

    and it runs to completion, you're likely OK (though test it). If instead it says

    error: Failed dependencies:
    libgwenhywfar.so.38 is needed by fribble-4.5.6-el3.i386.rpm
    libofx.so.3 is needed by fribble-4.5.6-el3.i386.rpm
    python(abi) = 2.4 is needed by fribble-4.5.6-el3.i386.rpm

    that's RH's way of telling you that no, it's not going to work. You can of course override that with --nodeps, but you'll be in for a lot of pain if you do, so don't; find an up-to-date RPM instead.

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  2. The jump in this case is too large, and sqlite is present in the base repo. Rebuild from SRPM instead. Note that you'll be responsible for handling updates yourself should you decide to do this.

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