Distro comparison

[josephc at etards.net]

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, Derek Martin wrote:

> I think David's issue (and mine, if I'm correct) is that if the system
> still works, you shouldn't ever have to install a new version of the
> OS.  In practice, this just doesn't work out.  Eventually, there comes
> a time when you need to upgrade some piece of software, and to do so
> would cause a cascading dependency nightmare.

I'm afraid you're thinking "Windows Terms" where software that requires 
Win2K or XP just won't run on 3.1 or 95. With Linux and most other Unixes, 
there is little if any software that requires RedHat 8 or later (the 
exception being RPM's, but those can be easily recompiled).

I run a production webserver that's running RH 7.3, hardly the oldest 
thing out there, but far from cutting edge. It's running kernel 2.4.20 and 
all servers are patched. This machine could just as easily be RH 6.3, or 
even a 5.0 series machine, and I could run all the same applications on 
it. In terms of distrobutions, a major version change tends to me nothing 
more than a GCC upgrade, some cosmetic changes, and hardware support out 
of the box. Source compatibility is hardly eve broken.

> 
> For example, maybe you need to run the latest klyx.  To do so, you
> need to upgrade KDE.  But to do that, you need to upgrade a few dozen
> supporting libraries...  Blah blah blah.
> 

I still think GUI applications should be left out of this conversation. On 
a production server, it is a waste of space, memory, and cycles. Church.

> > As of 2.0 (it may have "after 1.3"), Debian committed to never
> > leaving machines without a smooth, free upgrade path unless the
> > entire architecture was no longer being supported.
> 
> This is fine and dandy, but still requires you to upgrade your
> machine.  Granted, if you have a fast Internet connection, or a local
> mirror, the process is relatively painless and smooth for Debian, most
> of the time.  But, multiply that by 1000 machines, and it still sucks.
> 

Make a local copy of the upgrade, and upgade those 1000's of machines from 
the localcopy.