[NTLUG:Discuss] To update gcc or not?

[Leroy Tennison]

John Thomas wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> My system is RedHat Enterprise Workstation, v. 4.  I recently 
> installed a kernel update from 2.6.9-22.0.1.EL to 2.6.9-22.0.2.EL.
>
> I'm running VMware, and it requires one to re-compile certain modules 
> whenever the kernel is changed.  This time, though, VMware reports 
> that the new kernel was compiled under gcc-3.4.5, while my compiler is 
> gcc-3.4.4.  So, VM won't re-compile its modules under the new kernel.
>
> I haven't received an update from RedHat for gcc-3.4.5.  Should I just 
> go ahead and get it and install it?  Will new libraries overwrite 
> existing libraries and cause a cascade of problems?
>
> I will appreciate any tips.
>
> John Thomas
>
>
>
>
>
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>
I'm not going to tell you dogmatically what to do in this situation 
because I don't have enough experience with it to feel that confident. 
 However, I have had a similar experience with OpenAFS (installed the 
"correct" kernel version - it's a long story - then hit the gcc issue 
which I couldn't resolve).  What worked for me was to go get ALL of the 
current patches, put them in one directory and do 'for i in *; do rpm -F 
$i; done' or something like that to freshen all of the installed base 
packages (watch out for my syntax, I'm doing it from memory and it's 
probably wrong at least in one place).  If you don't have a spare hard 
drive now is the time to stop in at first or third Saturday and pick up 
a 10GB or so for testing purposes.  I wouldn't risk my 'production' 
machine on anything like this until I had tested it in a safe situation.