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How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

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Re: How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

#3

Post by hvs »

Is "obsolete" the correct word here? Just because a software package isn't the most recent version doesn't mean that it is obsolete. Depending on the distribution, it could be that the older version is better tested than the most recent version. In that case, you may value stability over the hottest new feature. Let's put it this way: if half of your distribution can be considered obsolete in 2 weeks, your metric is BS.

Re: How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

#4

Post by alexgartrell »

hvs wrote: post #3

Is "obsolete" the correct word here? Just because a software package isn't the most recent version doesn't mean that it is obsolete . Depending on the distribution, it could be that the older version is better tested than the most recent version. In that case, you may value stability over the hottest new feature. Let's put it this way: if half of your distribution can be considered obsolete in 2 weeks, your metric is…

I suspect that "How obsolete is your distro" is to be taken less than seriously. This site provides interesting statistics regarding the uptake of new versions in popular distributions, the meaning/worth of which is very much left open to the reader. I certainly didn't find any implication that more obsolete means less valuable on the site.

Re: How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

#5

Post by SwellJoe »

speek wrote: post #2

And that's why I love arch :-)

And it's why I love CentOS/RHEL or Debian on servers.

Stability and predictability is vastly more important than having the most new-fangled of everything. Fedora or Ubuntu (non-LTS releases) are nice desktop systems, and they have all the latest fancypants stuff built right in, but I'd laugh someone out of the room if they suggested running them on a server. Arch doesn't even appear to have an official policy on lifecycle, so it's definitely not in the running.

Re: How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

#6

Post by blasdel »

SwellJoe wrote: post #5
speek wrote: post #2

And that's why I love arch :-)

And it's why I love CentOS/RHEL or Debian on servers. Stability and predictability is vastly more important than having the most new-fangled of everything. Fedora or Ubuntu (non-LTS releases) are nice desktop systems, and they have all the latest fancypants stuff built right in, but I'd laugh someone out of the room if they suggested running them on a server. Arch doesn't even appear to have an official policy on lif…

Ha, you want lifecycle? Arch (and its father, Gentoo) doesn't just not have an official policy -- the whole point of the distro is to not even have versions or freezes, much less support them.

Every Gentoo and Arch install is a special snowflake, with whatever the latest stable versions were when a package was last updated. Rolling releases are awesome -- the software doesn't have to ship in a goddamn box!

RHEL + Debian are constantly backporting and patching so much crap onto their 'frozen' versions of upstream software. For them 'stable' means that you get the pain of updates without any visible features, with the added annoyance of hacked-in patches from people who didn't write the software.

Re: How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

#7

Post by scott_s »

alexgartrell wrote: post #4
hvs wrote: post #3

Is "obsolete" the correct word here? Just because a software package isn't the most recent version doesn't mean that it is obsolete . Depending on the distribution, it could be that the older version is better tested than the most recent version. In that case, you may value stability over the hottest new feature. Let's put it this way: if half of your distribution can be considered obsolete in 2 weeks, your metric is…

I suspect that "How obsolete is your distro" is to be taken less than seriously. This site provides interesting statistics regarding the uptake of new versions in popular distributions, the meaning/worth of which is very much left open to the reader. I certainly didn't find any implication that more obsolete means less valuable on the site.

The word "obsolete" has implications, so if he doesn't want to imply those things, he should pick a different word.

Re: How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

#8

Post by joeyo »

blasdel wrote: post #6
SwellJoe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's why I love CentOS/RHEL or Debian on servers. Stability and predictability is vastly more important than having the most new-fangled of everything. Fedora or Ubuntu (non-LTS releases) are nice desktop systems, and they have all the latest fancypants stuff built right in, but I'd laugh someone out of the room if they suggested running them on a server. Arch doesn't even appear to have an official policy on lif…

Ha, you want lifecycle? Arch (and its father, Gentoo) doesn't just not have an official policy -- the whole point of the distro is to not even have versions or freezes , much less support them. Every Gentoo and Arch install is a special snowflake, with whatever the latest stable versions were when a package was last updated. Rolling releases are awesome -- the software doesn't have to ship in a goddamn box! RHEL + De…

There is a reason why Debian does backports: to get the bug fixes and nothing else. Why on earth would you want new features on a production box? If new features are added, something could break. If features are removed in the new version (and this happens more often than you might think) something could break. If even the command line arguments change, something could break.

For this reason there's pretty much zero pain to Debian Stable updates. I cannot even think of a single instance off the top of my head where applying buxfixes on a Debian Stable box has caused any problems at all.

Re: How Obsolete is Your Linux Distro?

#9

Post by dfranke »

joeyo wrote: post #8
blasdel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, you want lifecycle? Arch (and its father, Gentoo) doesn't just not have an official policy -- the whole point of the distro is to not even have versions or freezes , much less support them. Every Gentoo and Arch install is a special snowflake, with whatever the latest stable versions were when a package was last updated. Rolling releases are awesome -- the software doesn't have to ship in a goddamn box! RHEL + De…

There is a reason why Debian does backports: to get the bug fixes and nothing else. Why on earth would you want new features on a production box? If new features are added, something could break. If features are removed in the new version (and this happens more often than you might think) something could break. If even the command line arguments change, something could break. For this reason there's pretty much zero…

> I cannot even think of a single instance off the top of my head where applying buxfixes on a Debian Stable box has caused any problems at all.

Well, a certain commented-out line in OpenSSL comes to mind :-)

But seriously, I refuse to run anything other than Debian Stable, Ubuntu LTS, or a stable BSD tree on my home systems. I rely on my desktop more than I rely on any given server, so why would I put something less stable on it?

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