A Linux for the totally maintenance free

[Steven Rosenberg]

Fedup has been working very well for me over the F18-20 period, and
that relative easy of use has kept me running Fedora for the past year
and a half.

I don't know if this is something on the Fedora roadmap, but a
graphical version of Fedup would go a long way toward making many
users more comfortable updating their Fedora system.

While I'm not crazy about updating every six months, Fedora's practice
of continually pushing new kernels into "stable" releases combined
with the fact that changes over six months are by nature less radical
than those over two (or four or five) years should mean that the
chances of an upgrade from version to version succeeding are higher.

Especially for new hardware, Fedora works very, very well because you
get new kernels and other bits all the time, and you don't necessarily
have to wait for the next distro release to start seeing things work
better.
--
Steven Rosenberg
http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog
http://blogs.dailynews.com/click
stevenhrosenberg at gmail.com
steven at stevenrosenberg.net


On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Bill Oliver <vendor at billoblog.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Tom H wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 2:24 PM, jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 10/23/2014 12:46 AM, Tim wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, 2014-10-22 at 19:11 -0600, jd1008 wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Any ideas what linux to use for such a person?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Along with other suggestions, consider the support aspect. If they
>>>> can't do it themselves, it's going to be you. Which distro can you put
>>>> up with? Either working it for yourself, or finding a support forum
>>>> that's useful for you.
>>>
>>>
>>> support from "me" is exactly what I want to minimize :) :)
>>> Definitely, Fedora would not be suitable for this lady I am helping.
>>> And neither would Ubuntu.
>>
>>
>> You seem to be asking for the impossible. Whether you install Fedora,
>> Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows, there are going to be regular updates.
>>
>> Why don't you install Fedora and put up with having to use an external
>> repo for non-free stuff (if necessary) and upgrading every 6 months or
>> so?
>>
>
>
> No matter what distro she chooses, there will be a learning curve, and
> that will require help if she's not at least a little computer-oriented
> already.  If you have taken on the role of helping her, you can't avoid
> that.
>
> But note that's no different than for Windows or MacOS.  I haven't tried
> to do much with any Windows machine past Vista, but people still ask me
> to help them with their problems now and then.  So I sit down and try to
> puzzle it out. The last time I sat down at a new Windows machine
> running, I think it was Windows 7, things were *not* intuitive.  The
> same thing goes for finding your way around MacOS.  Once you get beyond
> just clicking on apps, they both require some learning.
>
> The *difference* is that people who use Windows and MacOS have spent a
> *lot* of time learning it, but did it a little at a time over a period
> of years. So they don't recognize how much time it was in aggregate.
> Then, when they switch to linux, it is "hard" not because it's any more
> difficult than Windows, but simply that much of the *years* of work they
> spent learning Windows doesn't immediately transfer.  That's different
> than being hard, and there's almost no way around it.  Either she'll
> take to it or she won't.
>
> I gotta say, as much as I bitch about stuff like systemd, there's a
> reason I keep coming back to Fedora -- and one them is that
> updating the system is so freaking pain-free.  And any distro without
> frequent updates is a dangerous distro, including Windows and MacOS.
>
> Er, notice I said "update" not "upgrade."
>
> And, with respect to updates, you can't get much more simple than "sudo
> yum update."   Personally, I think fedora shines in that area.  And,
> fedora supports its older distros quite sufficiently.  If your friend
> sticks with it for a year, she'll be just another old linux hand, and
> won't be intimidated by either changing distros or performing a clean
> upgrade via installation.  I don't know anybody who stuck with linux for
> a year *and used it regularly for daily stuff* who wasn't well-prepared
> for doing a clean installation.  And, it's my personal philosophy that,
> for *personal* machines, a clean upgrade is the way to go -- it cuts
> down tremendously on malware, leaks, misconfigurations, etc. that linger
> with regular upgrades.  There may be good reasons to keep a production
> machine chugging along, but wiping the disk on a personal maching every
> few months is a smart thing to do IMHO.
>
>
>
>
> billo
>
>
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