what is a good rule of thumb when considering an OS upgrade? at the moment i'm running an older version of red hat linux. wondering others were thought about upgrades...and when you should. i know there are some that have to stay cutting edge. even so far as to be running betas and versions that aren't stable yet. i'm not one of those. i just need to know from some other people their thoughts on upgrading. which versions they've run and used the longest. if it one should always be upgrading it is also good to note that i only run command line anyway, so any help or different look and feel of some of the gui red hats don't really interest me. just looking for some ideas out there. i'm just an administrator over a few servers online. the system running now is stable and running well. atleast as well as i can tell. just looking for some comments and ideas, and things ya'll have run across .....thnx guys.

The only thing that I care upgrading is the security files. A new distro is always nice, since it comes with a new kernel and new security fixes, etc. Otherwise you not really have to worry about upgrading your distro. Although, it's good to read what newer versions of a determined software has to offer. Like taking a look at the new gimp or mplayer, perhaps they have added a function that you were waiting for. These can be easily found at the "What's new" on every page.
So, to sum up, I always keep security services up-to-date. Programs that I use often, only if they offer a function that really interests me .

I am running several versions of linux on my servers, I have redhat 7.2 9.0 and slackware 9.1. I do not like upgrading servers as I always have odd problems as I complile everything from source and it never upgrades right. As long as you keep up on the updates you don't really need to upgrade much on a linux system.

What I do for an upgrade is always try the newest and best, I try to kill it on a test machine for a while, if it holds up fine I setup a production machine and transfer all the data and workload from the old server to the new one. I normally do the transfer in a test enviroment a couple of time first so I know how I need to do it plus then I can try it to make sure it transfers right.

at the moment i'm running a version of red hat 7.3. i've been happy with it so far. it is also good to note...when debating over which version to upgrade to if at all that i only use command line for my servers. anway, i was just wondering if the further along red hat 7.3 gets from the current version (aka rh 9 and higher), the less update packages and new pagckage will be made available. just wondering what a few thought.

so to update the whole rh to say 9 isn't that important. just keep sercurity up to date and i should be alright? or should i go ahead and update?

cli_man, question? which servers do you have redhat 7.2 9.0 on and which ones do you have slackware 9.1 on. just wondering which was used for which and how you liked each. i've never got to see what slackware looks like, or talked to anybody else about it.

anyway, just seeing what it would be like, and how harder it gets with updates and such with older versions of red had....thanks for the input. anybody else can feel free to through in your 2 cents worth too.

hmm, my is that you only upgrade a full distribution when you feel like it... otherwise, upgrade only the packages that need upgrading to satisfy dependencies of new software you want to install or of course security patches.

As long as you keep your updates done you don't "need" to ever upgrade to the newer os's but I find the updates start getting harder to do on older systems as they don't really test them on anything more than say 2 years old.

I am running 3 levels of os's right now, my redhat 7.2 machines are the next to be upgraded and all my new machines and upgrades are going to slackware 9.1, I have been working with slackware for awhile and feel that it is the best to go with on a server right now. My machines in the middle are redhat 9.0 machines, once all my servers running 7.2 have been updated I will start moving the 9.0 machines, by that time there will probably be a new slackware version I will test and move to by that time.

The reason I have moved from redhat to slackware is they have stopped making redhat distros the way I am used to as of 9.0 and now they have the fedora project, that worried me a bit and I have been playing with slackware for quite awhile to see if I like it. As far as I can see slackware is much nicer to work with, all the files are where they are suposed to be, I always had problems installing apps from source on redhat because they moved files around. Also I have much more control over the slackware setup and therefore my system is more secure and runs faster.

Once again upgrade whenever you feel the need to, just make sure to keep up on security updates no matter what. I normally have about 3 levels of os's out the older ones that I replace as I can (moving the load to newer servers, or something of the like) the middle ones that are pretty up to date and running very well, and the newest servers which are running the newest most stable that I have found. And if you want to add my development level which would be my fourth level, this is where I play with many different distros and versions of the distros. I periodicly make full images of my servers and I will take one of those images and set it up on a development server and then see how to move it to the newest distro/version so when I actually do the changeover it goes very smooth and I know what to expect.

Also I forgot to say what I though of each of the distro's I am using:

Redhat 7.2 - I thought this was an excellent distro, it has run rock solid, I get uptimes of over 6 months with no problems. I don't use rpm's much but they are not making them anymore for 7.2. Also I have noticed I am getting better throughput off from 9.0, I think that is mostly from the newer kernel version they are using so if I upgraded to the new kernel version my 7.2 machines would probably proform as good as my 9.0 machines.

Redhat 9.0 - I have not had any problems with this one besides you have to remember to upgrade the ssh and ssl packages, I had one of my devel machines hacked because I forgot this :-) Besides that I have really liked redhat 9.0, I didn't move to many machines over to it though as I started going with slackware.

Slackware 9.1 - This has been rock solid, I like the minimal install I can get, also I love the fact when I am done with the install and about 5 minutes of config I am only listening on one port - 22 for ssh. With redhat I always had about 10 - 15 ports open and I never really knew which ones I needed and didn't, I know I could have taken the time to find out but I like with slackware it ones starts what is needed. Also the config files are in the right places and so it is faster to work with.

Now I tried redhat 7.3 and 8.x series and didn't like them, they never seemed very stable for me, I had wished they would come out with a redhat 9.1, normally the .0 releases have to many bugs in them so I like going with the .1's and .2's

well i'd enjoy staying with red hat and am really looking into going with the 9.0. like you, i wish there was a newer version of 9 to where all the bus are worked out. sorry i've been living under the shadow of 7.3 (i inherited these servers at work) so please explain to me this new flashship ..... RH Enterprise Linux. is that taking up where 9.0 left off? is 9.0 being abandoned for Enterprise?

i see there is a 9.0.93 beta out, so does that mean more 9 is coming? or is enterprise just another name for......

anyway, could someone please explain red hat's way of thinking right now. and what exactly Enterprise is compared to 9.0. since i wanna stay with them i could really appreicate it. thnx guys....






(for updating purpases, which is the whole point of this discussion, note: that fancy gui does not impress me. my servers are 100% commandline)

From what I have seen and read the last of the Standard Redhat series is stopping with the 9.0 series, they may make a 9.1 and so on but they will not move to 10, They now have the Enterprise which you have to buy from them (Nothing against this, it is good to support companies like redhat) and the free version is called Fedora. From their website the Fedora package is the equivelent of Redhat 10.0, they said that that is running less stable code where the most stable version would be their enterprise version. Of course they would say that to get more sales.

If you really like the Redhat and want to stay with them you might want to look at the enterprise versions, you get support with them. I don't know if the new versions will not be as stable as they are saying fedora is going to be more of a devel disro.

ah, see i have trouble saying fedora is gonna be comporable to rh 10......too many hands in the pot....and too much liberties may have been taken. in your opnion would one be better saying with 9.0 than going to fedora? it seems like it would be more stable.


were you also saying 9 was gonna have a 9.1 and 9.2...perhaps. but that was the end of the free and old school redhats (aka no 10). everything after that is either:

1) take your chances with fedora......if it was my server or machine maybe. but this is work

or

2) convince the company to actually spend money and buy the Enterprise versions

i'm tempted to go with 9 and save us the trouble. why would i want enterprise really? or is 9 gonna end up being a dead end. dead in when it comes to support and especially a dead end when it comes to updates and rpm's? i'm now torn between 9 and enterprise it seems. which would be better at the moment, for the long run...and how how to/ how hard will it be to jump from 7.3 to Enterprise. still would appreciated the thoughts.

.....

.......also, of course looking here:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhelorfedora/
it seems like i couldn't get 9 if i wanted to.

not to mention if anyone has actually had any experience with enterprise. i'd love to here how it is too. thnx