25May 2012 by Asim Zeeshan No Comments

How to configure repos to not overwrite base packages?

CentOS, How to, Linux
The greatest fear with adding additional and especially third party repos such as EPEL (we did a blog post on how to install EPEL earlier) is that it MAY overwrite base packages and bring the system to an unstable state. We can fix this issue by installing Yum Priorities plugin on CentOS 5: on CentOS 4 or CentOS 6: Then make sure that the plugin is enabled Now there are two ways to do it, either set HIGHEST priority to CentOS repos OR set lowest priority to other repos. This is done by adding the line In this blog post, I will set 1 as the priority (highest) for my CentOS Base repo So that it becomes Other repos do not need updating since I have assigned CentOS repos with…
Read More
09Jan 2010 by Asim Zeeshan 2 Comments

To update or not to update?

CentOS, Linux, Thoughts, Ubuntu
All my technical life, I knew and followed this simple rule New updates to any application or component are meant to improve and fix the bugs present in it. Downloading new updates ensures that you system is up-to-update, has fixes to all those bugs you have been getting annoyed with and more stable. Unfortunately not every IT department thinks that, especially the one I am facing at work. According to them, the new updates should only be applied IF and only IF they offer some new functionality (duhh!). Hello! what happened to the bug-fixes that are promised with these updates? (more…)
Read More
07Aug 2009 by Asim Zeeshan No Comments

CentOS yum update missing dependency error

CentOS, How to, Linux, OpenSource, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials
If you are using on CentOS and getting the following errors Missing Dependency: /usr/lib/python2.4 is needed by package libxml2-python-2.6.26-2.1.2.7.i386 (installed) gamin-python-0.1.7-8.el5.i386 from installed has depsolving problems Missing Dependency: /usr/lib/python2.4 is needed by package gamin-python-0.1.7-8.el5.i386 (installed) Error: Missing Dependency: /usr/lib/python2.4 is needed by package libxml2-python-2.6.26-2.1.2.7.i386 (installed) Error: Missing Dependency: /usr/lib/python2.4 is needed by package gamin-python-0.1.7-8.el5.i386 (installed) Don't panic, the solution is simple ... just run the following command Then do
Read More
02Jul 2009 by Asim Zeeshan 2 Comments

How to Install Apache, PHP and MySQL on CentOS

How to, Linux, OpenSource, PHP, Resources, Tips and Tricks, Tutorials
I have seen people installing Apache, PHP and MySQL from source code on a production server. You should NEVER, NEVER, NEVER install these packages from source on an RPM or DEB based Linux distributions. Did I say “NEVER” enough times to make your realize that it is not a good practice? Installing from source is bad idea; there are many reasons for this but the major one is that you will be spending a lot of time keeping the system updated. If you love installing from source then I would suggest using a different distribution e.g. Gentoo. You can build from source if the package is not available in yum but still, try to use “yum” (or “apt-get” on Ubuntu) because it will save a lot of your time when…
Read More