FC2 doubtful quality?

[Jim Cornette]

Timothy Murphy wrote:

>Dexter Ang wrote:
>
>  
>
>>So I guess developers were "pressured" to release on a deadline, hoping
>>to fix most bugs through updates. As much as I'd personally love to help
>>test and test until all bugs are stamped out, you can't avoid the fact
>>that a lot of other people simply won't test until a "final" release is
>>out.
>>    
>>
>
>I'm not sure how typical I am,
>but I haven't run any test releases because it has been said
>that one cannot upgrade from a test release to a new FC release.
>  
>
Nothing is supported anyway. I have upgraded from test cycles to final 
releases several times. This may leave newer versions of programs on 
your machine that were not stable enough t be released with the final 
version of the distro. Hopefully, the program will become stable enough 
that the fonal release version will replace the not ready for release 
version.

I have one system that is always paced with current rawhide packages. 
This system is surprisingly stable. In fact, my network cards both work 
on this environment.

I have another version that is an install of FC1 and went through the 
test phase (FC1 to FC2) and is staying at current FC2 released packages. 
This upgraded environment has all of the multimedia related packages and 
is what I consider my main OS.

The third version is a fresh install of FC2 and is pretty limp in that 
it does not have all of the multimedia related add-ons included. This 
evironment works great for things like dvd burning and the sound to be 
set to a decent default level.

>It would simply be too time-consuming for me
>to re-install FC whenever a new release comes out.
>Perhaps I'm not very well organised,
>but I would have to go through dozens of config files
>to see which need to be copied, and which updated.
>  
>
If you are not running a lot of services, add-on programs and user 
related data seem to be the only major drawbacks. I've been held back by 
pre-existing config files on several occasions. I was unaware that CD 
burning worked on later versions of RHL. The hdx=ide-scsi addition to 
the boot loader from RHL 6.x series to RHL 7.x series never took place. 
Once I did a fresh install and found out that I no longer needed to boot 
into windows to burn CDs, I was happy with catching up.

>So I would suggest to the Fedora administrators
>that if it were possible to upgrade from test releases
>there might be a lot more people willing to test.
>
The answer that you most likely will get is that this is unsupported. 
The good news is that other than progressively upgrading through the 
test cycle is not that bad. At least from my exposure to doing *the 
unsupported* betas to next release cycles.

Disadvantages of upgrading throughout the OS cycle. New programs added, 
they will not be installed. Config or default application settings 
changes for the better, config files might be better with a new install.

Advantages of clean installations. You will get newer packages that are 
included in the new version. You will get the latest configuration file 
defaults, which seem more sanely based.

Good luck and have fun testing. Who knows what is supported anymore on 
an unsupported OS. It works great though, at least for me.

Jim