ATI video comes out of the closet
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Sat Sep 8 21:05:17 UTC 2007
Dave Ihnat wrote:
> The problem is that the only way to get current applications which are
>> evolving rapidly and have the cool stuff you want is to get them bundled
>> with a wildly experimental kernel and device drivers that will regularly
>> die underneath them.
>
> Ah...well, as has been noted, you can selectively accept or reject updates.
>
> And remember--*everything* can be built from source. If there's a particular
> package you want to have the latest'n'greatest, and they're not moving it
> fast enough to suit in the test and repository cycle, you _can_ just build
> that one for yourself.
Is that something you'd suggest that your clients do for their desktops?
Or are you recommending Linux at all?
> Because of that, I won't run Fedora as a server; I don't want to have
> to monitor my server closely to make sure wonky updates don't bring it
> down, and I don't want to be forced to upgrade to the next--possibly
> very wonky-- release as they push the older version of Fedora out.
>
> OTOH, it's on my dual-boot laptop, and I enjoy poking at the new stuff.
Yes, there's a need for experimental things and a sometimes-booted
partition is a suitable place for them. But that's not going to replace
Windows in the mainstream.
>> I realize that fedora isn't the distribution I wish it were, but I think
>> everyone would be better off it there were a way to have Red Hat style
>> administration, a stable kernel and device drivers, and up to date apps
>> all in one distribution.
>
> Frankly, this was the argument that was held back when RedHat stopped
> their normal distribution and went to Fedora.
Their old model clearly couldn't be sustained - they were backporting
every critical fix into every previous release in non-behavior changing
ways.
> They deliberately pushed
> it right to the bleedin' edge, while pulling back and offering "stable"
> business releases. Unfortunately, their business offerings are too
> expensive for the very small business or hobbyist. Where simple pricing
> was a differentiator before, the current supported price is so close
> to that of Windows that you have to find some other differentiator,
> such as FOSS applications that meet the client's needs.
And of course, the free clones are also high quality, but that comes
with the open source territory. But, I just think there is a product
missing for desktop use although regardless of the quality I don't think
I'd want to be in the paid Linux desktop support business.
> I think there's probably a niched for something between Fedora and RHE
> Server or Workstation. But RedHat already *had* something that fit
> there and clearly decided it didn't fit their business model. Ok, so
> that means if I need something cheaper than RHE, and more stable than
> Fedora, I go to CentOS, or SuSE, or Ubuntu, or--well, pick your distro.
I think it will be really interesting when distros built on OpenSolaris
with a userland similar to Linux distros have some traction.
http://www.nexenta.org looks promising and zfs would be fun to play
with. At least maybe they will be able to keep the kernel working.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
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