Convert RHEL 6 to CentOS 6

If you are using RHEL 6.x and you want to move to the free CentOS 6.x, it is very easy to do this migration.

Open terminal and enter the following commands by order:

# yum clean all

- Create CentOS directory

 # mkdir ~/centos

- Cd CentOS directory

# cd ~/centos

- Download the packages

# wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.0/os/x86_64/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6
# wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.0/os/x86_64/Packages/centos-release-6-0.el6.centos.5.x86_64.rpm
# wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.0/os/x86_64/Packages/yum-3.2.27-14.el6
.centos.noarch.rpm
# wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.0/os/x86_64/Packages/yum-utils-1.1.26-
11.el6.noarch.rpm
# wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.0/os/x86_64/Packages/yum-plugin-fastes
tmirror-1.1.26-11.el6.noarch.rpm

- Now enter the following commands by order to import CentOS key, install the downloaded packages and to upgrade to CentOS 6.x

# rpm –import RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6
# rpm -e –nodeps redhat-release-server
# rpm -e yum-rhn-plugin rhn-check rhnsd rhn-setup rhn-setup-gnome
# rpm -Uhv –force *.rpm
# yum upgrade

Now reboot and enjoy.

Exclude kernel updates in yum

Many times I have set up my NVidia driver in Linux only to clobber it during an update of patches because a new kernel was available.

Well, I run on a laptop, and I don't care about new updates to the kernel. So, I did the following:

Add "exclude=kernel* to /etc/yum.conf

That's all.  Happy days are here again.