Ok here is the situation:

I've got a piece of software that has been given to me that has been developed on (and for) Red Hat 9. Lets not go into the wisdom of this, but its been developed on a P4 machine to run on a P4 machine.

Now I've got an IBM Server, brand new, out of the shop, Dual Core Processor, yadda yadda yadda... But I've got Red Hat Enterprise 64bit installed on there...

So... What I want to do is reformat the server, install Red Hat 9 on there and try to run the software. I'm trying to work out the wisdom of my actions, I am not a linux expert, I can get by in linux - I've been using it for years, but never have I come across this sort of a problem and I am looking to see if anyone can shed some light on if they think I'm going to run across some problems here...

Thanks in advance

I would think that it should work fine. You may have to build a new kernel to support some of the new hardware. I can't remember off hand what rh9 shipped with. If you want to install new packages, you may run across some issues as the toolchain is considerably old.

I don't think it will work very well at all. To begin, a 64 bit processor is useless in the default install of RH9, as the default kernel (2.4.19?) doesn't support it. Furthermore, there are probably going to be some major hardware detection issues. Gigabit network card? Probably won't work. New hardware RAID controller, probably won't detect it. I could be completely wrong and everything will be detected by the installer, but I very much doubt it.

I would think it is easier to check out the code within the software you want to load, and either "upgrade" the software to work on recent OSes, or install a good 64-bit OS, and if the software it needs requires older versions of programs, compile them in a separate location, and link them in to the system under different names.

Peace,
JimBass

Run RH9 as a virtual guest.

Unfortunately checking the code out and recompiling it for the 64bit architecture isn't an option - precompiled binaries are the deliverable at the moment.

I don't so much mind if the program isn't efficient, and if it isn't utilising the resourcing advantages that a 64bit architecture offers - I just want to get it running so that I can use it in the field.

I've been given a binary for a P4 system - which I can't easilly go out and purchase (especially after I've already spent thousands on state of the art IBM servers). So I'd like to try and use the existing systems if at all possible.

Then I would follow syg00's wise advice to run RH9 as a virtual server within a more up to date OS. There were many flaws in RH9, and it reached its end of life years ago. If this computer has internet access, I would consider it a serious liability. It still is somewhat dangerous as a virtual host, but hopefully you have it well firewalled.

Peace,
JimBass

JimBass: The Server isn't to have internet access - it is to be a closed system, so security isn't an issue. I've been told that the system will not run on kernel above 2.4.20-8 due to the networking in the later versions...