Everyone,
I know that this is probably a dumb question, but...

If we have the ability to upgrade all of our packages and even the kernel, why do we care if Red Hat stops support of RH9? What is the advantage of having a distro that is packaged all together? Can't we just upgrade the kernel and tools independent of the distro?

Chris

You sure can. I dumped Fedora pretty quick and returned to RedHat 9. The only problem I see in sticking with RH 9 is that package availability may get a little harder as time goes by, unless you are cozy with compiling from source.

Well I figure that as long as there are a few people out there still using RH9, that rpms will still be made. After all you can convert from other distros like debian, and it's not going anywhere.

On a side note... I had a very interesting phone call from Micro$#*t today. I got an email touting all of the security issues of the new 2003 server and I went ahead and got the free security kit for kicks. I had to fill in a questionaire stating other competing OS's I was considering, so of course I mentioned Linux. That was Monday. I got a phone call fom them today asking for more info and if I had any other special needs they could help with. I found it very amusing that they are calling people trying to pimp Windows to people considering Linux.

Having a low cost, highly reliable, robust and secure OS in Linux is awesome... but,

Blasting Window's Total Cost of Ownership, Security and Reliability records and cost... to Micro$#*t, long distance on their dime...

Priceless... I think I'm tearing up...

Chris

/dev/geek
I love this stuff!

I dont see that happening, already people with RH 7.2 are on the verge of insanity when it comes to packages. What Pcghost says is what is going to happen

King Nothing

But RH7.3 was replaced by another RH...

If people really get fed up with Fedora, there's nowhere else to go with RH.

But I agree there's no way it'll get better. I just wonder what the longevity is going to be. People are still using 7.3.

Chris

Well i upgraded to fedora a couple of days back, its gonna go back to 9 next.

Its the most messy version ive come across, errors all over the board. Games not working properly.

Id go back to slackware, but i couldnt get the network interface up in 9.1 and x wouldnt load (and spent 4 days trying to fix it).i guess i'll have to go back to 9.

PS. did i mention i left windows to get away from this reinstallation malarky/

This is exactly what lead me to give SuSE 9 a shot at ruling my desktop. As much as I liked Red Hat, their decision to abandon their desktop Linux offerings left a bad taste. I still use RH9 on several of my servers but the first time I encounter the effects of the loss of development in it, I will be changing distros on my servers as well.

For desktop use, SuSe wins all IMO. It is even well worth the money for the box set, partially to get the manuals and partially to support Novell.

In a word... stinks. Fedora has much work to get it to the Mandrake or others level. They was right there and then... Fedora emerged.

Wouldnt they continue to make RPM's due to the fact that redhat will still offer Enterprise Linux and what not?

PCGhost,
I have to agree about the SuSe. I just got the live 9.0 version and played with it over the weekend... pure gold. It was a very nice desktop arrangement. I too am considering it as an RH replacement. Can you tell me anything about their package management? Apt, yum or something else?

Chris
/dev/geek

Package management is handled by YaST, which is similar in some ways to APT. I think it actually includes APT and/or YUM sources. There are lots of sources available and I would give it an A- overall. The minus is only for the search engine that is integrated into it.

The SuSE control center is great. You can have different settings for as many networks you normally connect to and can switch all settings back and forth with the click of a mouse.

The default install of SuSE 9 is a little bloated for server use, but it is pure magic on the desktop. I just do custom installs on my server to slim it down.

i've ran fedora 3 for 10 months, no problems, then the machine died, and fedora never booted again, knoppixed my data out, but stuff hasn't worked the same since.

I think FC3 has been the best Fedora yet. I had so many problems with 4 that I had to junk it. I've actually been using CentOS and I've been very happy with that. Good package availability and it caters to my familiarity with RedHat.

fc3 is great, 4 is crap, nothing but trouble so far. i'll run 5 maybe (when it comes out) if its stable, for now fedora 3 is it for me. i've had friends do ok with 4, but because i am usaully running it on server hardware, 3 seems better and more stable

Keep in mind that Fedora Core 3 and before have been discontinued and there are no more updates for them except security updates from the Fedora Legacy project. That's why you can't "just upgrade all the packages".