Les Mikesell wrote:
Mike McCarty wrote:
There is a distinction between "unmaintained" and "unsupported".
What's the difference? The bugs that were always there become known and exploitable by easily obtained scripts. You need updates to keep the known bugs fixed.
They are independent activities, though maintenance is easier with a distro which is supported. Upgrading from one update of, say FC6, to a later update is a maintenance activity which may or may not take place, even though FC6 is supported. Replacement of a version of Firefox with a later one on an FC2 machine is also a maintenance activity. Doing backups is a maintenance activity. Opening the box and vacuuming out the dust bunnies is a maintenance activity.
They are not the same thing. One may have a well-maintained but unsupported machine. I have a well-maintained MSDOS machine, for example.
One may also have an unmaintained but well-supported machine. Just don't do anything, even click the up-to-date icon or run yum, and don't do any backups.
Mike