Rahul Sundaram wrote:
Hi
I generally characterise Fedora as a rolling beta.
That would somewhat fit in better with the description of rawhide. Fedora is meant to be robust. Since it has a large number of users and its fast moving the chances of regressions are somewhat larger. Would help if more people tackle updates-testing repository and provide feedback.
Oh, come one! From the website: "...combination of stable and cutting-edge software..."
Cutting-edge software is rarely robust. That's why it's called "cutting edge."
I was around when rawhide was created; its nature may have changed since then, but about the time of Valhalla it was a mismash of packages, whatever the Red Hatters were working on, and if Jeremy had recently released a new Anaconda it might even be installable, but there were many complaints that it wasn't.
It was also used for unofficial fixes; this resulted in people thinking packages there were official.
I found it a useful source of newer versions of some packages, perhaps when I required some new feature (likely I got dhcp3 there when 2 was current).
Today, I suggest that If you want stability and support, buy RHEL in the appropriate flavour If you want stability and cheap, download one of the EL clones such as TAO, CENTOS, WBEL (are there more?) If you want the latest and can bear the occasional breakage, use Fedora Core 4. If you don't care for stability and/or want to help refine things, Fedora Core 5 beta (maybe blend in some rawhide?) is for you.