End of life for FC12?

Patrick Bartek bartek047 at yahoo.com
Wed Nov 10 04:26:32 UTC 2010


--- On Tue, 11/9/10, Kevin Fenzi <kevin at scrye.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 9 Nov 2010 19:35:33 -0800
> (PST)
> Patrick Bartek <bartek047 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Just because it's EOL doesn't mean it stops working on
> that date,
> > too. ;-)
> 
> Sure. 

The way people talk about EOL, you'd think that it did.  Stop working, that is.

> > Since FC6 (I've been using Fedora since Core 3), I've
> only upgraded
> > with every third release--6-9-12.  I think it
> wasteful of time and
> > energy to upgrade any faster.  It takes almost
> the 6 month release
> > cycle to get everything working smoothly anyway. 
> Then chuck it all
> > and start anew with a new set of problems?  No
> thanks.
> 
> Note however that when a release goes end of life you no
> longer get ANY
> updates from Fedora (including security updates). This
> makes your
> machine more and more vulnerable over time. Also, you may
> be told in
> various support forums to upgrade if you run into issues. 

I'm not running a server with the need for up-to-date security, but a personal desktop that has more that sufficient security.  After 10 years of using various versions of Linux, I've yet to be infected or hacked.  So, I must be doing something right.  I ran FC6 for almost a year past EOL before finally upgrading to 9.  Never had any problems.

> > I've gotten to the point where I'm tiring of Fedora's
> fast release
> > cycle.  I need a longer life OS.  I build my
> personal systems to last
> > about 5 to 7 years with periodic hardware upgrades as
> needed.  I'd
> > like the OS last that long, too.  My current
> system is only 4 years
> > old and has already had 3 versions of Fedora on it.
> 
> Take a look at RHEL or CentOS then. 

I have (See following quoted paragraph).  I'm waiting for the Final release.

> > I've looked at the beta of RHEL 6, which seems to be
> based on F12/13,
> > and it's "current" enough for my needs.  (5 along
> with CentOS and
> > Scientific Linux versions are too old being seemingly
> based on FC6.)
> > So, when the new RHEL is release, about a month later,
> I'll take a
> > look at CentOS 6, and go from there.
> 
> Note that if you installed rhel5 when it came out it would
> be about 3.5
> years old. You say above you want 5-7 years, so toward the
> end of that
> cycle it's going to be old software. ;) 

That's okay.  The hardware's going to be old, too.  I would just like an OS I can install when I build a system, and not have to install another until I build another system.  Simple.  Efficient.  Cost effective.

FWIW, I considered Rolling Releases, but that comes with its own set of problems.  Mainly, hardware incompatibilities after a time.

> > Of course, there's always Debian 6.0. ;-)  It's
> in Beta now.  Stable
> > should be out Februaryish.  Or March.  Or
> April.  With Debian, you
> > can never tell.
> 
> Use what you like. ;) 

I always do, regardless of consensus.

B


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