How to Upgrade from CentOS 5.x to CentOS 5.9

On January 17 2013, CentOS project team leader Karanbir Singh has announced the release of CentOS 5.9 for both the i386 and x86_64 system architecture.

CentOS is an community-supported open source operating system that based on Red Hat. The CentOS 5.9 release is based on the upstream release of EL (Enterprise Linux) 5.9 and comes with all the packages including Server and Client. This release is the ninth update in the CentOS 5.x series and comes with lots of updates, bug fixes and added new functionalities.

What’s new in CentOS 5.9

1. This new version has major bug-fixes, feature enhancements and added support for new hardware.
2. The UOP included native support for MySQL to Postfix.
3. Added Java 7 and Java 6 support.
4. Ant 1.7.0 version added and older Ant 1.6.5 still available.
5. Added support for Microsoft Hyper-V drivers.
6. A new version of rsyslog named (rsyslog5) included. The old rsyslog version 3.22 still available.
7. Samba3.x updated to samba 3.6.

The complete feature set and release notes of CentOS 5.9 can be found at official announcement page.

Upgrading from CentOS 5.x to CentOS 5.9

If you are already running earlier version of CentOS 5.8 or any other older 5.x version. You can easily upgrade your system by simply running 「yum update」 command from the terminal. First check out the currently running version of CentOS you are running.

[[email protected] ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release

CentOS release 5.6 (Final)

If your are using CentOS 5.x version, you can easily upgrade to CentOS 5.9. The upgrade process is very simple all it needed is to run 「yum update」 command.

But before upgrading, I recommend you all to list down all the packages with ‘yum list updates‘ command. So, you would get the better idea which packages are going to install.

[[email protected] ~]# yum list updates

The only official way to upgrade any CentOS 5.x to CentOS 5.9 using. (Important: Please take backup of all important data).

[[email protected] ~]# yum update

Once upgrade process completes successfully, check version again by running the command.

[[email protected] ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release

CentOS release 5.9 (Final)

Finally, verify your system my checking all services and configuration files.

Download CentOS 5.9 ISO Images

If you are looking for new or fresh installation, then download the CentOS 5.9 images using the following downlaod links for your 32 or 64 bit archietecture.

1. Download CentOS 5.9 – 32 Bit ISO – (622MB)
2. Download CentOS 5.9 – 64 Bit ISO – (625MB)