On Sat, Sep 08, 2007 at 10:52:15AM -0500, Les Mikesell wrote: > The problem is that the only way to get current applications which are > evolving rapidly and have the cool stuff you want is to get them bundled > with a wildly experimental kernel and device drivers that will regularly > die underneath them. Ah...well, as has been noted, you can selectively accept or reject updates. And remember--*everything* can be built from source. If there's a particular package you want to have the latest'n'greatest, and they're not moving it fast enough to suit in the test and repository cycle, you _can_ just build that one for yourself. > I don't see the point of changing the kernel or drivers in a machine > _ever_ once they work correctly except perhaps for security updates > or when adding new hardware. The semantics of what the kernel is > supposed to be doing was established pretty well 30 years or so ago. Hm. The original concept of the kernel in Unix was to strip off everything that wasn't critical to the OS and put it in user space. (How do you know what that is? Kinda like the way the Michelangelo knew how to carve a horse; look at it, and remove everything that doesn't look like a horse.) Critical services; resource contention; scheduling; etc. Now, some things--actually, many things--have crept back into the kernel. (I wasn't thrilled with Ritchie Streams, and argued against them when first proposed. He actually called me--I was on contract at the Labs at the time--on my internal extension to tell me he agreed with some of my arguments, and to discuss the matter. Those were heady days.) I don't know that everything they want to try belongs in the kernel; but I'm something of a purist. I do know that, if they're going to experiment with a distribution, that's what Fedora is supposed to be. Because of that, I won't run Fedora as a server; I don't want to have to monitor my server closely to make sure wonky updates don't bring it down, and I don't want to be forced to upgrade to the next--possibly very wonky-- release as they push the older version of Fedora out. OTOH, it's on my dual-boot laptop, and I enjoy poking at the new stuff. > I realize that fedora isn't the distribution I wish it were, but I think > everyone would be better off it there were a way to have Red Hat style > administration, a stable kernel and device drivers, and up to date apps > all in one distribution. Frankly, this was the argument that was held back when RedHat stopped their normal distribution and went to Fedora. They deliberately pushed it right to the bleedin' edge, while pulling back and offering "stable" business releases. Unfortunately, their business offerings are too expensive for the very small business or hobbyist. Where simple pricing was a differentiator before, the current supported price is so close to that of Windows that you have to find some other differentiator, such as FOSS applications that meet the client's needs. I think there's probably a niched for something between Fedora and RHE Server or Workstation. But RedHat already *had* something that fit there and clearly decided it didn't fit their business model. Ok, so that means if I need something cheaper than RHE, and more stable than Fedora, I go to CentOS, or SuSE, or Ubuntu, or--well, pick your distro. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat President, DMINET Consulting, Inc. dihnat@xxxxxxxxxx
