Upgrading SLES9 to SLES10

All:

We purchased SLES9 6 months ago, with a one-year SW support contract.

We want to run Subversion and Trac (http://www.edgewall.com), and neither
of them are available as RPMs (at least the most up-to-date, most bug-free
versions).  However, I noticed that someone out there has RPMs for SLES10.
 So, we're interested in upgrading.

These two applications are THE use of our server (an HP Proliant DL380 G4),
so if SLES10 is broken in some other small ways (since it's not yet
officially released, and certainly not certified by HP), that would be fine.

My questions:

 - Has any other Proliant user had success with SLES10?
 - Does our support license allow us to upgrade for free?

Note that I've tried building both subversion from source, and it seems to
build fine, but on this platform, the python bindings (swig-py, needed by
trac) seem to not install properly, and there are build warnings related to
libtool that I cannot figure out.  So, if anyone knows how to build
subversion's 'swig-py' target on SLES9, that would probably fix my problem
without my having to upgrade.

david.vanmaren@dako.com wrote:
> All:
> 
> We purchased SLES9 6 months ago, with a one-year SW support contract.
> 
> We want to run Subversion and Trac (http://www.edgewall.com), and neither
> of them are available as RPMs (at least the most up-to-date, most bug-free
> versions).  However, I noticed that someone out there has RPMs for SLES10.
>  So, we're interested in upgrading.

Remember that SLES is built for reliability, not the latest and
greatest. You may want to look into OpenSuSE if you want to be on the
cutting edge.

>  - Has any other Proliant user had success with SLES10?
Haven't tried it on a proliant, but it's a newer kernel so there's no
reason the hardware-specific stuff shouldn't work.

>  - Does our support license allow us to upgrade for free?

I believe upgrade protection is separate from support, so I would think
not. I am not an expert in this area though.

> Note that I've tried building both subversion from source, and it seems to
> build fine, but on this platform, the python bindings (swig-py, needed by
> trac) seem to not install properly, and there are build warnings related
to
> libtool that I cannot figure out.  So, if anyone knows how to build
> subversion's 'swig-py' target on SLES9, that would probably fix my problem
> without my having to upgrade.

SLES9 Subversion RPMs and all its requirements are provided in the SLES9
SDK:
http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/SLES_SDK


-- 
Justin Grote
Novell Support Connection Sysop
Network Architect

Justin Grote [SysOp] wrote:
> david.vanmaren@dako.com wrote:
...
>>  - Does our support license allow us to upgrade for free?
> 
> I believe upgrade protection is separate from support, so I would think
> not. I am not an expert in this area though.

It's a support contract... you can run whatever version of SLES you
want.  Remember, SLES is free.  It's the ability to do updates
is what you are paying for (well partly what you are paying for).

We run HP Proliant boxes here, and I've migrated them all from RHEL to
SLES9.

Now I have not installed SLES10 yet, but I would agree with Justin, I
would be 99,99% sure you will experience no problems.

We also run on one of them Subversion and Trac.

http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/SUSE_Linux_SDK_9

Check that, as you can easily add Subversion by downloading the SDK CD's
or just adding a YaST installation source.

As far as Trac goes, well, build yourself some RPM's, I have to do
exactly that for quite a few packages are developers are reliant on.

Again, I 100% back Justin's comment of SLES being built for stability
and not being bleeding edge. I've used SuSE for years and when chatting
with some people they seem to slag off the fact that such an such
application in SLES is an old version and not the current, with out
taking into account that SuSE are ensuring that the packages within SLES
are kept in a stable state, not just the lastest version.

Regards

david.vanmaren@dako.com wrote:
> All:
> 
> We purchased SLES9 6 months ago, with a one-year SW support contract.
> 
> We want to run Subversion and Trac (http://www.edgewall.com), and neither
> of them are available as RPMs (at least the most up-to-date, most bug-free
> versions).  However, I noticed that someone out there has RPMs for SLES10.
>  So, we're interested in upgrading.
> 
> These two applications are THE use of our server (an HP Proliant DL380
G4),
> so if SLES10 is broken in some other small ways (since it's not yet
> officially released, and certainly not certified by HP), that would be
fine.
> 
> My questions:
> 
>  - Has any other Proliant user had success with SLES10?
>  - Does our support license allow us to upgrade for free?
> 
> Note that I've tried building both subversion from source, and it seems to
> build fine, but on this platform, the python bindings (swig-py, needed by
> trac) seem to not install properly, and there are build warnings related
to
> libtool that I cannot figure out.  So, if anyone knows how to build
> subversion's 'swig-py' target on SLES9, that would probably fix my problem
> without my having to upgrade.
> 

Chris Cox wrote:
> It's a support contract... you can run whatever version of SLES you
> want.  Remember, SLES is free.  It's the ability to do updates
> is what you are paying for (well partly what you are paying for).

Fair point :), I just couldn't remember if the support contracts were
separate for upgrade protection and support or if the upgrade protection
always comes with the tech support.



-- 
Justin Grote
Novell Support Connection Sysop
Network Architect