[ILUG] FC6 for a new pc?

[Gary Pigott]

Gavin McCullagh wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, 25 Oct 2006, John A. Kinsella wrote:
>
>   
>> I know that FC should be upgraded regularly - I have got away with not 
>> doing so.
>>
>> Am I more likely to run into problems with FC6 if I dont upgrade to FCn 
>> (as n \rightarraow \infty)?
>>     
>
> How long does FC continue to distribute security patches?  Suppose you run
> say cups or ssh and a vulnerability is discovered after they stop patching
> FC6.  You'll either stay vulnerable or have to roll your own patch.
>
> Other bugfix updates are probably less important if you're happy where you
> are but you really need the security fixes.
>
>   
>> Is there a wiser choice for lazy people like me? Ubuntu???
>>     
>
> RedHat Enterprise and CentOS are supposed to have very long support cycles,
> right?  If you're familiar with FC that might be a convenient choice.
>
> Ubuntu Dapper is "LTS" meaning they give long term support -- 5 years from
> last June.  The new release "Edgy" will not be though so if you don't want
> upgrades you could install Dapper and stick with it for a long time.  You
> can decided to take security updates and/or bugfix "updates", but you
> really should take the former.  There shouldn't be any necessary upgrades
> until June 2011.
>
> Gavin
>   
If you went down the Debian based route you have two update choices.... 
there are the conventional point in time snapshot releases with security 
updates only, just like any other distro, or the choice of always 
staying on the stable, testing or unstable branches. I run vanilla 
Debian on my servers and stay on the testing branch. While Potato was 
the "stable release" I was on what would eventually become Sarge. When 
Sarge as released, the boxes were seamlessly transitioned to Etch. You 
can do exactly the same on Ubuntu, and it is very lazy, but very easy to 
ensure you're always running something current.

Gary

-- 
Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you with experience...
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