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I have a set of programs for analyzing radiation data and I want to build packages for Red Hat Linux versions 4.x - 6.x. Is it possible to build these packages on a single build server running a single version of Red Hat Linux or do I need to build the version 4.x package on a server running version 4.x and the version 5.x package on a server running version 5.x?

If I can build packages for several versions on a single server, must that server be running the newest version or the oldest version of the OS?

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It is possible, but once you start to think about the logistics, it's a huge pain in the backside. If you're short on machinery, VMs are your friend. I maintain bare-bones images of each version of the OS I want to build for and have an automated process that creates a fresh VM with each image, does the build on the VM, extracts the results, tears it down and goes on to the next one. – Blrfl Jan 29 at 18:14
For the answer to this question see the question reasked on StackOverflow at => stackoverflow.com/questions/14589194/… – J Edward Ellis Jan 30 at 18:26

closed as off topic by Blrfl, Glenn Nelson, Martijn Pieters, gnat, MainMa Jan 29 at 20:04

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As long as you have all the right library versions to link against and your build system knows where to look for them then it shouldn't matter what version of the OS is actually running. Hell you should be able to cross-compile on a windows box if you really want

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