Robert Locke wrote:
On Thu, 2004-07-15 at 04:53, John McBride wrote:
I suspect it is as I feared. The rules appear to have changed (fedora was originally portrayed as being somewhat stable, but over time more posts are saying it's not suitable for production, only experimentation stuff or home use).
So, yes, FC2, I suppose, could be declared a less stable distribution but it's not a minor upgrade (a proverbial point release). To me, FC2 is a dreaded point zero release. But I refuse to condemn the Fedora Project for moving forward.
I'm glad they are moving forward, too, and it's great that there are a lot more people involved. Still, you sound like you are in the same position as me--FC1 was great and fairly stable from the get-go, while FC2 appears to have issues, and FC3 is coming up pretty fast...administrating these 25 or so machines is a very part-time thing for me. Redoing two servers and 25 boxes every 6 months is problematic for me, it's repetitive work I'd rather not do. And it's work that implies Linux is not ready for prime-time (that's the perception I will get). I hope they at least consider stretching things out or coming up with a better upgrade methodology.
This is okay and all, but it leaves me in a tough spot. I'm gonna take some hits for migrating a bunch of people off RH 8/9 6 mos. ago and now this product appears to be marketed strictly for experimentation.
I've tried Suse, Slack, Debian, Mandrake...and all had far more problems than Fedora, in my experience.
I think the real change we need to understand is that the Fedora Project is just that, a Project that is community supported.
The free lunch is still here, though. Just as many probably did before with RHL you can continue to do with FC: download it, install it and use it.
But, with RHL, how did we get support? We paid. But now, you need to take ownership of supporting it yourself (with your clients paying you) or you need to find someone to support you. But expect to pay for that support. Of course, if this is a little too shaky for you on who to find to support you, then go to what the big vendors are supporting: purchase RHEL or purchase Suse Enterprise and receive a support contract if the alternative is too shaky.
Actually support (in the form of updates) was free for RedHat products until RH9 was end-of-lifed, as I recall. It's all subscription now, isn't it?
The problem is we are still evaluating whether anyone in our company should use linux *at all* with the idea that, at some point, we might go for a more professional service, distribution or "flavor". It's just too early right now. "Free" is not that big of a deal to me--I just don't want to be locked into a subscription.
Fedora gotten to be like drugs for me. Often new packages will appear for fedora through a third party site almost immediately after release...it's great. And they tend to work just fine.
Suse, by the way, is a borked product. I know people might not want to hear that, but I've got two fairly seasoned web developers (lots of unix and web experience) who had several support mightmares with it---critical packages way out of date, paths and environment variables pointing to unusual places, etc. They are okay with FC1 but are going to scream when I walk in to upgrade them to FC2 or FC3 ("YOU JUST DID THIS LAST WEEK!") not really but they will be pissed.
RedHat 2004 anyone, coming to a shelf near you?
Actually it already is: shrink-wrapped and called Red Hat Professional Workstation and based on RHEL 3 WS. Works nice....
I have never seen this anywhere. I have been under the impression that all non-fedora RH products are subscription only. I'll look into this and if this is something like a RH8/9 replacement I will go for it right away.
Also, I have become totally addicted to my local rsync'd FC1 yum repository. I doubt I'll ever use another distro that does not have this ability.
--- John
