Hi,
I'm excited to get FC5. I was planning on waiting
for the release, but I don't know if I can wait any
longer.
My cdrom has start acting funny; it's a mounting
issue and I noticed with the last two kernels. I've
got too much software installed that I don't use. And
it is the original partition setup when I first became
a linux user last July.
So is it worth the wait for FC5 release or is FC5t3
just as good? Will the final release be pushed back
like the test releases?
The best thing to do would be to practice patience or you will be forced to later when the inevitable problems crop up and you are all alone with them and no one can reproduce your errors.
It is always safest to install from scratch on a bare system with a stable release. It is always the most tested configuration and any existing data that needs to be migrated just complicates things.
If you have a home directory that needs to be migrated, the next safest is to upgrade with the release CDs. Some special corner cases where config files need to be rewritten or files moved around or other things that rpm cannot easily handle get included in this option; not every case but the more common ones at least.
The next safest is to do a yum update between releases. It works usually but typically requires a bit of fixing things. It is common enough for people to do that there are a few people around to share your pain and give you pointers. You will collect little problems each time you do and will not benefit from more sane defaults choices in config files.
The most unsafe would be to have a developmental install and upgrade it to a release using yum or the install CDs. There is a very good chance that it will work fine. There is also a very good chance that you will have some errors on your system that only you have. Since misery likes company, you will be very miserable. So if you are confident that you can troubleshoot things on your own then this option will work OK. However, if you do go this route, then have bugs and end up reporting them without having found the problem and presented a solution, you will likely be ignored unless others that have taken the more popular upgrading routes share that same problem.
This is just according to my experience though.
/Mike
