CentOS 5, RHEL 5.6, and security updates

Posted Feb 24, 2011 3:06 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659)
Parent article: CentOS 5, RHEL 5.6, and security updates

As mentioned in the article... this does typically happen during the gap of time when CentOS is trying to put out new releases (and now 3 with 6.0, 5.6, and 4.9) out so this is nothing new.

I wish the article had covered how well the other RHEL clones are doing.

Scientific Linux - SL has released several betas and a RC for 6... so it is close but still not done. I haven't heard a peep about 5.6 yet... nor 4.9... but I'm not very attuned to their community.

Oracle - This commercial clone of RHEL/CentOS only released 6 a little over a week ago. I haven't heard anything about 5.6 or 4.9. Hmmm, does Oracle even have a 4 series? I'm not sure.

To clarify about 4.9, Red Hat didn't release refreshed .iso images... just packages. I'm not sure how each of the clone makers are going to handle 4.9. .isos or just packages?

Any any event, I think criticism of CentOS isn't really called for when they seem to be pulling their weight relative to the others. That isn't to say that I think this LWN article was critical (mainly informative) but I don't really agree with DAG or others who might feel otherwise. The CentOS developers are clearly aware of their issues and aren't trying to mislead anyone.

The advice goes... if you need updates faster than the community project can provide them and you can't build them yourself, you should probably buy one or more RHN entitlements.

At least CentOS is distinguishing between critical updates and less important ones as I think they should. I'm not trying to wave my hands and say security updates aren't important... because they certainly are. How have all of the other, non-clone distros, faired in updating the issues that also affect them? I'd chance a guess and say that almost all of them are doing better than many of the commercial OS vendors.

CentOS 5, RHEL 5.6, and security updates

Posted Feb 24, 2011 4:20 UTC (Thu) by ESRI (guest, #52806) [Link] (2 responses)

Oracle released Unbreakable Linux 5.6 on January 20th. Scientific Linux has a rolling 5.6 release (as they do with 6.0).

Obviously, Oracle has a lot of resources to devote to their releases, and I'm not really sure how SL does their work, but I believe they have some financial backing (full-time people?).

For CentOS it seems to be a manpower shortage... how to solve it remains to be seen (it's not easy to become a member of the "core" group where likely the most help is needed). I think it might not hurt them to recruit or bring in someone who isn't focused as much on doing the technical work, but can instead target documenting, organizing and publicizing work flows and procedures and making a concerted effort to allow more people to participate and help CentOS out during the point release period. This way things don't necessarily slow down while Johnny or Karanbir are having to deal with restless mailing list complainers or issues at $DAYJOB.

CentOS 5, RHEL 5.6, and security updates

Posted Feb 24, 2011 4:43 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] (1 responses)

Checking SL's front page it says their latest releases are 5.5 and 4.8. Checking their FTP directories, it says 5.5 and 4.8. The document you linked to says, "Linux ALPHA" so I'm guessing it is an alpha release just like they have released test releases for 6. With CentOS 5.6 supposedly only a few days away... that seems more advanced than an alpha release but I don't want to count those chickens before they are hatched.

Oracle was my bad. I hadn't seen their 5.6 release noted on distrowatch.com and didn't hunt down the info on their site.

CentOS 5, RHEL 5.6, and security updates

Posted Feb 24, 2011 14:35 UTC (Thu) by ESRI (guest, #52806) [Link]

I actually haven't tried SL's 5.6 "alpha", so I don't know how far along it is (I have been using their 6.0 rolling release for a few weeks now without problems). They do seem to make their dog food available immediately for the masses to consume whereas CentOS uses a more private QA process (no public release until final).

Note -- I don't mean any of this as a slight to the CentOS crew. I agree with you -- if you need quicker turnaround on any of this, you should be paying RH money.

CentOS 5, RHEL 5.6, and security updates

Posted Feb 25, 2011 19:22 UTC (Fri) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

Maybe they could put up a list of the security updates that aren't handle yet and regularly update it with information which packages are being processed / already done, so that others can help with packages that are important for them?