Note: This process has been tested and reviewed on i686 platforms. I'm looking for a x86_64 tester and someone who wants to try on a i586 class system. {I tested it with x86_64 and i586, both worked ok (hughesjr)} It also works to move from RHEL-3 or Taolinux-1.0 to CentOS-3.

Migrating from WBEL-3 is a simple process. The procedures here are designed to laterally move your system from WBEL-3 to CentOS 3. The immediate benefits are numerous; timely updates of RHEL errata, developers are reachable, and active community support.

Each step below should be run as root and should be entered as a single command in a terminal window. Dynamically sized browser windows may wrap lines.

1) yum features a "clean" option that will clean up various things in the yum cache directory. This command is optional, but recommended.

Optionally Execute: yum clean

2) This step install the CentOS package signing key. To verify the authenticity of the CentOS 3 package signing key please see this FAQ item.

Execute: rpm --import http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-3

3) This step installs the CentOS specific -release file; this obsoletes the package whitebox-release. (The whitebox-release package is automatically removed, so you need not concern yourself with it's removal).

Execute: rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos/3/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/centos-release-3-5.3.i386.rpm


Quote:

4) This step installs the CentOS version of yum and a suitable yum.conf file.

Execute: rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos/3/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/yum-2.0.8-1.centos.7.noarch.rpm

rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos/3/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/centos-yumcache-3.1-0.20050526.3.noarch.rpm

rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos/3/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/centos-yumconf-1-11.noarch.rpm


Quote:

5) Depending on the version of your WBEL install, your existing yum.conf may have been moved to /etc/yum.conf-SAVE and the CentOS yum.conf placed in /etc or the CentOS specific yum.conf was installed as etc/yum.conf.rpmnew and your yum.conf was unaltered. If your original yum.conf file was NOT moved save your current yum.conf and replace it with the freshly installed CentOS yum.conf. For now just to get your system working with the default CentOS yum.conf. The following steps will get the CentOS yum.conf accessible by yum.

If Necessary:
cd /etc
mv yum.conf yum.conf.mysaved
cp yum.conf.rpmnew yum.conf
cd -

6) To verify that your yum.conf file is accurate and to see what packages yum wants to upgrade we strongly encourage you to use yum's list updates feature to display it's intentions before attempting to upgrade your system. NOTE: Version 2.0.x of yum will download many package headers as part of the update process. Yum is not downloading each package, so do not be alarmed by the amount of screen traffic yum is generating.

Optionally Execute: yum list updates

Execute: yum update

7) At this point your box is upgraded. A reboot is suggested (to verify the reboot process works and to use any new kernel that was installed). If you were previously using a custom yum.conf file you will want to add your custimization back to the current CentOs /etc/yum.conf file.

Performing this process will not remove or upgrade any packages where CentOS and Whitebox share the same version number. This allows you to "convert" your box to CentOS and subsequently use CentOS repositories for updates, etc.

We also recommend that you join the CentOS discussion and information mailing list.