To upgrade or to change to a more 'stable' distrobution
Patrick Bartek
bartek047 at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 3 20:39:26 UTC 2010
--- On Wed, 3/3/10, Seann Clark <nombrandue at tsukinokage.net> wrote:
> I am polling for options on some of my
> servers. I have two that are out of date now, one sorely out
> of date (using Fedora 8) and I am wondering what the best
> path to upgrading that would be. I would go over to CentOs
> on it, but I don't know how stable the move out be or what
> the level of effort would be on that, so I am polling for
> answers. I could also upgrade it to the latest Fedora if
> that is painless, per say. The other system is too large, in
> terms of file system to effectively back up (3.2 Terabytes
> of space) given my current means, and that system is on
> Fedora 9. Using pre-upgrade in theory would work, but as I
> haven't used it, I am not sure how it would impact the box,
> especially the VM side of things, as I know the kvm
> functionality is changed just slightly. Any suggestions
> would be welcome.
I'm at a similar impasse, but with regards to desktop/workstations. I most like longevity with stability coming in a close second like with servers. With Fedora's current 6 month release cycle, I've become increasingly frustrated with the length of support for previous releases--on average about 15 months. I ran F9 prior to 12. And FC6 before 9. I have an "If it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude. Also, I take "If it's new, it must be better" with a grain of salt.
I want a desktop/workstation OS that I can install, configure to my satisfaction, run for YEARS like with a server, and have support the whole time. And only upgrade when it fails to satisfy my current requirements or needs. Or I need to build a new computer. Much like the way I buy a car. The last one, an ugly, utilitarian 4x4 (not an SUV. There's a difference.), I kept for 24 years before replacing it.
Anyway for those reasons, I considered CentOS for my next desktop and abandoning Fedora. It is Fedora-like, and I like the look of Fedora and the way it is set up, having used it since Fedora Core 3. Unfortunately, the latest series 5.x is based on Fedora Core 6 code, and looks it. Yes, it's stable, but too old for my needs. However, all is not lost.
RHEL 6 is suppose to be released the latter part of this year according to Red Hat. It is rumored to be based on Fedora 12 and/or 13 code, but Red Hat hasn't said. CentOS 6 will be release about a month after, if they follow tradition. Maybe, you should wait for info on CentOS 6, before upgrading to Fedora 12 or whatever.
And FWIW, I suggest not upgrading even using the pre-upgrade utility. F8/9 to 12 is too big a jump. You'll be courting disaster. A clean install is the only safe way.
B
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