long term support release

[Yaakov Nemoy]

On Jan 22, 2008 10:59 PM, David Mansfield <fedora at dm.cobite.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 22:42 -0500, Yaakov Nemoy wrote:
> > On Jan 22, 2008 10:16 PM, David Mansfield <fedora at dm.cobite.com> wrote:
> > > I'm fairly new to this list so if this is flame-bait, then I apologize.
> > > I was wondering whether there is any possibility of having the
> > > occasional 'long term support' (LTS) release of Fedora (say one every
> > > two years or something) so that users can settle down with the distro
> > > and actually become productive with it.
> > >
> > > Say the LTS cycle is one release every two years (every fourth Fedora
> > > release), and that the 'long term' for support only lasts for two years
> > > (which is pretty short to use the term long for, I realize), then there
> > > would only be one LTS release, and also the most current release to
> > > worry about at any given time.
> > >
> > > If there is simply not enough teampower to do this, then that's
> > > understood.
> >
> > Just like every other Fedora related project, teampower is always an
> > issue.  That alone could shoot down the idea.  RHEL and CentOS are
> > certainly there if you do need something more stable, with I think
> > nearly 7 years support per release.  I'm not sure how Fedora and its
> > Community would benefit from a direct Fedora LTS release.  That "Other
> > Well Known Distro Maker" releases their LTS product with a similar
> > target audience that RHEL and CentOS serves.  The people that use
>
> You're not suggesting I use the 'Other Well Known Distro' are you?
> Seriously, though, on my latest laptop I tried CentOS 5, and it was
> awful on a laptop.  Synaptic problems, networkmanager problems, crappy
> wireless support (out of date) etc.  I killed it in about a week.  I
> also tried the Other distro and as a Fedora (and Red Hat Linux before
> that) guy, it just doesn't do it for me.  Old dog, new tricks.  It
> lasted about a month. That said, updating every 6 months doesn't do it
> for me either.  What's a Fedora lover to do?

Run Fedora of course :P. You won't get the lastest hardware support,
or even the relatively best hardware support in RHEL anymore.  It gets
certified for a bunch of machines that existed back then, as you
probably already know, having worked with it before.

If you go LTS, you have to make some tradeoffs.  One of those
tradeoffs is that the hardware compatibility will really suck towards
the end of the life cycle.  It will seem outdated and quaint, and you
might even find yourself longing for all the cool things that Fedora
has to offer. ;)

You mentioned you wanted a certain stability.  You also want certain
critical updates for hardware and other fun random things.  Thas is a
really really really tough goal to achieve.  Not even Red Hat is
willing to provide that in RHEL.

-Yaakov