Wrong distro for stability, then [LWN.net]

Wrong distro for stability, then

Posted Aug 15, 2006 6:19 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753)
In reply to: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules by warmcat1
Parent article: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

What is the meaning of FCn? It really has to mean that the set of packages that make it up are largely fixed in stone, it would suit many users that it meant that you will only get security updates. I have friends and family on Fedora boxes that I manage for them remotely and if they sucked down a new xorg it runs the risk of causing me more trouble than it would bring them benefit.

But if you really want this, you (or at least the friends&family computers you help manage) should really be running RHEL, CentOS or other "enterprise" distribution, which has a policy of doing only bug and security fixes after each major release. I'm running CentOS on a couple of computers on which the emphasis is on getting mundane work done with minimal need to worry about the platform "living" too much under my feet, and so far it has worked well. But this obviously is a boring solution :-).

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Wrong distro for stability, then

Posted Aug 15, 2006 7:38 UTC (Tue) by warmcat1 (guest, #31975) [Link]

> at least the friends&family computers you
> help manage) should really be running RHEL,
> CentOS

Yes good advice, I have several servers on CentOS for the same reason. But Fedora's having the latest stuff (the RHEL/CentOS are still on 2.6.9) is not just appealing to the need for shiny things: many recent laptops and so on won't work well or at all on 2.6.9 and the level of xorg drivers in the "really stable" branches of The Redhat Way.

Fedora is the right answer I think. The question about issuing xorg 7.1 to FC5 was a difficult one, after all Fedora "doesn't support" binary drivers so it didn't have to not break those folks. But OTOH there is a ceaseless thumping of the Ubuntu drums coming from the jungle day and night and many people who currently need their binary drivers for a working desktop would certainly considered this beyond the limit.