fedora 9 -versus- fedora 8 plus updates
 

Approximately, what would the difference between two identical computers be after going through the following processes:

#1: installed fedora 8 when it was released, then installed all updates for installed components as they were released --- up until the day fedora 9 is released.

#2: installed fedora 9 the day it was released

I guess #2 might come in two varieties:
- what you get when the install process completes
- what you get after you then update the installed components

Of course, my question assumes the same components are selected (to the extent possible).

A reverse way of asking this question might be this. If someone gets updates for an older release, what are they missing compared to a new release? Besides bugs.

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In case it matters, I ask because I installed fedora 8 when it came out, and after some struggles solved by helpful folks in this forum I was able to get everything working well enough to port and develop my 3D simulation engine (based upon OpenGL 2.0 + GLSL shaders) on the eclipse IDE. But I never was able to get fedora 9 working well enough to do anything when it was released. I'm about to get back to work on that project now, and ready to install some release of linux (probably fedora unless someone has a better suggestion for this kind of work) on a new terabyte hard drive.

My experiences make me wonder whether fedora 8 might be a better move, but I might miss some useful cutting edge feature if I do that. Also, I can't remember why any more, but when I tried fedora 8 in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties, I had to settle for the 32-bit version for some reason. So any approach that enables me to [continue] developing both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of my software would be a welcome tip. Thanks for your insights and suggestions.

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Each of my two [almost] identical machines (built 2 months ago) contain:
(1) MSI K9A2 platinum motherboards
(1) AMD quad-core phenom 9850 CPU
(2) 2GB @ 800MHz DDR2-SDRAM memory sticks
(1) nvidia GTX 7800 video card --- will upgrade soon
(1) PCIe ethernet card with two gigabit ports with RJ45s

If you want the latest bleeding edge stuff, then Fedora9 will be better. As you do not get updates for Fedora for too long, you must learn to switch between versions.

anything i care about ?
 

The only bleeding edge stuff I care about would be:
--- OpenGL or GLSL shading language
--- nvidia drivers for my nvidia-GPU video cards
--- eclipse C/C++ software development environment

I can't think of anything else that I would notice or care about. Would fedora9 have the eclipse5+ distribution (not clear about the eclipse version numbering system - seems to be two different numbers (IDE and C/C++ support possibly)).

You've got a lot of questions and that's cool. The first thing to understand IMHO about Fedora is that if you're going to use Fedora you have to keep up with its release schedule. Put it the other way: yes, you can stay with F8 but once F10 is out you'll have to move to F9 anyway because then F8 will be EOL'ed. Of course you can decide the strategy of holding on to F8 and waiting for F10 (meaning more bugs will be ironed out in F9) is your thing, but that is not the point of using that distribution. Fedora is to Red Hat what Skunk Works is to Lockheed Martin: an experimental toolshed. So while on one hand Fedora provides you with bleeding edge software and support for it free of charge, on the other hand (and equally important) you using the software and reporting bugs means you help Fedora evolve: active participation, reciprocation, that's what's needed. I'm not telling you how things should be done, just hoping to create awareness what running Fedora should mean and that running Fedora is more than just using it for your own purposes. I hope you can see that.

But if I may I'd like to rewind back to
and focus on that because maybe it would be good to first find out what exactly doesn't work and *then* decide to stick with F8? Looking at your posting history I only see one unfinished thread related to problems with F9. Unfortunately you don't provide much (error) information there. For example if "updaters" like 'pirut', 'puplet' or 'yum' don't work, sometimes they'll throw errors in your ~/.xsession-errors.* log (check?) and else maybe on the commandline as well: open a terminal window then start the command like 'pirut 2>&1 | tee /tmp/pirut.log'. *If* there's output in /tmp/pirut.log, maybe it could help. Just in case it doesn't also keep an image viewer, mobile phone or digicam ready to make screenshots (upload to some free host, post link). Having that array of information makes it easier for you to search Fedora's bug tracker with errors, terms and keywords for related issues (and if none ask for help here providing details or open a ticket). Just my two cents.

Thanks for your constructive comments, unSpawn. I posted a question in the "Linux - General" forum asking for opinions of which distribution best matches my needs and inclinations. If you know the niches other linux distributions fill, please post a reply to that question.

I was thinking about downloading fedora9 again (to try anew on a new disk drive) when I realized they may totally freeze fedora9 when they release it and make no changes whatsoever no matter how horrible the problems are that people find --- and rely upon the updates to [hopefully] "deal with it". Is that true? If I was to download the fedora9 DVD image again, would I find the file is identical to the day fedora9 was released? Since my biggest problem with fedora9 was that I could not make the updater update, it is not possible for me to just do updates until the problem fixes itself! :-o Uh, oh. So much for that theory!

I am happy to report bugs and give what I consider carefully thought out opinions. But my experience in that regard has been very, extremely negative! Probably I just need to understand exactly where I am "supposed" to report bugs to avoid some of the problems I've had (mostly with extremely nasty and utterly unhelpful apologists for "the way things are", no matter how absurd). Perhaps you can point me to a general guide for how to know where to report bugs when I find them.

Unfortunately for me, I have always had a terrible memory (for proper nouns and obscure/arbitrary acronyms - except those I work with them every day, of course). How you gurus know all these obscure "cures" for a million little linux issues, I'll never know --- unless it has something to do with a great memory...

I may try fedora9 again - then pester you with questions to get myself up to speed(unless the ideas you mention in your previous comments cure my problems).

One forum question. If other forum visitors are like me, they rarely if ever visit more than one or two forums that relate to their interests. When I have a question that sorta fits into two or three forums, it is a no-no to post it in those forums to avoid being missed by "just the right person" to give me an answer?

My personal attitudes and goals are good enough, but I must admit linux forums get the short end of the stick from me. I have released some software packages as open-source freeware, and I do invest a fair bit of time to prepare careful answers to technical questions when I notice the opportunity (usually 3D graphics, CCDs, vision-systems, optics, and my other scientific/technical specialties). But I am almost always the begger in linux forums. Hopefully I'll spend enough time with linux in the next couple years to eventually offer more (than bug reports).

I'm sorry, I am not the right person to answer that question. What I can say is that if the triplet you mentioned is your focus of concern: NVidia drivers are distributed by NVidia so unless there's an OSS counterpart no distribution can claim to have "better" drivers, so that should be no criterium for choosing a distribution. Since it then boils down to OpenGL, GLSL and Eclipse you could well decide to load *any* stable distro (doesn't even have to be bleeding edge) and take whatever bleeding edge source or packages exists for OpenGL, GLSL and Eclipse and apply those (that is, if you know you *need* bleeding edge). Sure it will take some time and effort to make things work but that way you'll have the stability of a distribution that does not release updates every second *plus* the benefit of being at the forefront of progress *only where you need it*.


As far as I know F9 was officially released. That means, unless some howwwible mistake was made the ISO contents remain the same and everything boils down to updates, yes. I am sure the updater problem can be fixed. That said, I suggest you try the FedoraUnity "respin". That's the official F9 sources plus all the updates out sofar packed into one DVD.


Your distribution has documentation on bug reporting. I'd like to skip this until more important matters are addressed if you don't mind.


Go ahead, that's what we're here for.


Every LQ member has its own unique problems and approach, no two are alike. Unfortunately it is not possible (for reasons of efficiency mostly) to spread your chances by posting across fora at LQ. What I would suggest is posting with as much info as possible, posting as clear as possible and using a good thread title. Any topics that arise from that thread you find need closer examination than that thread can offer can then be split off to new threads. Of course it depends on what the question is.


I'm sorry to hear that. I can only hope that at LQ you'll find things different than other fora.

This may be just me but I have always felt that a developer's needs are far better served by the Ubuntu / Debian type of distro. With C/C++, you are more or less on neutral territory and Fedora may not far lag behind there - but for all the rest, it is rather a poor choice. Bringing it up to snuff has always taken me many hours of searching and compiling extra software.
For a long time I did not really mind as I really like Fedora for some reason that I can't explain but now I dual-boot Fedora and Ubuntu. And I find myself using Ubuntu over 75% of my time, especially now that Fedora 9 seems to have stepped over the bleeding edge in some respects.
There are other choices, of course. If you want a distro that is customized to be as snappy as possible, you could try Gentoo or even LFS. But then we are talking about distros that make you compile everything yourself. Whether an application launching a second faster is worth hours of reading and compiling is up to the user to decide.

Thanks for your observations jay73. Maybe I didn't mention it [clearly enough], but I am very anxious to *avoid* the need to learn how to configure and recompile bits and pieces and applications! I installed ubuntu yesterday and had generally good *first* impressions of the installation process - though it did appear to defer much more than fedora, and that might come back to bite me later rather than sooner. I had horrible experiences in the ubuntuforum and more-or-less decided to return to fedora9 just to escape the nasty, stupid, childish, utterly unhelpful troublemakers that respond to my questions. Of course it could be they are just too stupid to eject morons out the airlock for behaving that way, thereby attracting the worst. Perhaps the ubuntu forum here at linuxquestions would be fine, and perhaps I should reconsider before I eject ubuntu out the airlock.

Fortunately I was able to get everything working with fedora8 without any need to recompile anything - though it did take a fair bit of searching through these forums and help from lazlow and a few other sturdy and helpful fellows. As I said above, I was not so lucky with fedora9 for some reason.

So my response to your observations is a strong, "no, I have no interest in fiddling or recompiling or reading millions of web-pages/source-lines/linux-books to tweak another 0.04% performance out of each linux subsystem. I have already written operating systems and know how they work (as well as CPUs and compilers and IDEs and other goodies). So I don't need any of the grief in order to learn! In fact, just the opposite! I have important projects to complete, and want to focus on getting them done. I guess the bottom line is, I want the easiest time with installation and getting the bits and pieces I need working well, and the best group of forum helpers available - which probably means I should limit myself to popular distributions (that have more people checking the forums more often). I tend to work in 24~32 hour spurts, then crash and burn for 10~16 hours, so it helps me alot when I get helpful answers quickly on the forum (so I can stop fumbling and potentially screwing up my entire installation!). Somehow I gravitated to fedora and ubuntu - not sure why, exactly. And I just ordered ~8 ubuntu books to keep my ~6 fedora/linux books company. Unfortunately, usually what I need to know is one of those niche/specialized tips that elude the books, but get answered by the best of the forum gurus.

If you're familiar with Fedora, it may be worth trying CentOS - long release cycle, but similar setup, feel, etc. If you get that setup, at least you'll get a few years out of the effort

Hi maxreason,

I hope you also ordered Mark Sobel's Practical Guide to Ubuntu. Any book he has written is simply amazing.

Yes, the Ubuntuforums are not the best place to visit. Lots of friendly people there but also some with a pretty narrow world view. Ubuntu is all they know (kind of) so any critical remark you make tends can be construed as offense before you know what is going on. You'll find that LQ is generally a far better place to hang out. More knowledge packed into fewer heads, far more open-mindedness and a crew of moderators who are quick to intervene whenever a voice is raised (which is rarely).

Yes, I understand your point very well. I gave up on the DIY distros because I found that they took me way too much time without learning me anything that is of use beyond the distro itself.

By the way, posting in distro specific forums here is not always your best option. If you have a more general question, you'll often find that you get more exposure by posting in a more general section.

Also, if you continue using Fedora (too), you owe it to yourself to visit yolinux.com. I'm sure you'll pick up a few ideas there.