I am using Red Hat Linux 9.I'm planning to upgrade to Fedora 5.But after doing some research on Google,some sites say that it is necessary to upgrade every six months using something called Yum.

I want to install some version of Linux which does not require you to upgrade like twice a year.

I need some suggestions for the version of Linux required.

Thanks for your help.

You're never required to upgrade. Except for security patches or hardware patches you might need, it's not necessary every six months either. Otherwise you just need to upgrade/update the things you want when you want.

I'm using Fedora 4 on one of my machines, haven't needed to upgrade to Fedora 5, and don't plan to in the near future. I periodically run Yum (Yellowdog Update Manager), which is the package manager for Fedora, and update a few things that I use on a regular basis. I'm probably way behind on all the mp3 players 'cause I have this old-fashioned thing called a stereo.

If you're not looking for a "bleeding edge" distro, Debian might be a good choice. If you stick to the stable versions of their stuff (their default packages), you won't be having major updates all the time. Little tweaks here and there. Debian tends to release a new version every couple of years rather than twice each year. It's one of the older distros, runs well, installs easy, and is stable.

The Fedora Project supports each version of Fedora for one year (two releases, though FC5 was a bit delayed taking 9 months instead of 6 so FC3 and FC4 were supported for longer than usual), after which support is transferred to the Fedora Legacy project. Support in this case basically means software updates and security fixes. AFAIK ones Fedora legacy takes over a release, only security patches are offered and no other software updates (due to developer time constraint).

A good option for you might be CentOS, which is a free rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with all the RH proprietary stuff removed leaving only the redistributable stuff. Red Hat supports RHEL for a minimum of 5 years per release (e.g. RHEL, now on its 3rd update, was released in Feb 2005 so it will be supported until Feb. 2010 at least). Since CentOS just rebuilds the RHEL packages, their support is the same. Note, however, that RHEL and CentOS are geared more towards stability than the bleeding edge apps (Fedora is geared to the bleeding edge, hence the fast release cycle). This may or may not be important to you.