Fedora Core brevity vs server upgrades

[Paul Howarth]

On Thu, 2005-04-28 at 13:32 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
> I'd not use FC on a server.
> 
> I maintain several machines, some running Debian, a couple run FC3.
> 
> I maintain the software remotely - where remotely varies from across the 
> LAN to via dialup Internet.
> 
> apt-get works well and I run it nightly in a cron job to download from a 
> local mirror. It's easy to configure apt-get to use a particular mirror, 
> and the initial configuration is done at install time.
> 
> I've not discovered a good way to make yum download "hands off." I 
> _could_ make it download and install, but that's not my style. I like to 
> control when updates go in.
> 
> By default, yum uses a selection of mirrors in convenient locations such 
> as .fi. .il and goodness knows where else. I'm in Australia, and there 
> are few locations further away than those.

It's very easy to make yum use a local mirror. I do this both at home at
at work. Just point each repo at your local mirror using the "baseurl"
directive in your yum repository configuration instead of using the
default mirrorlist.

> I see an enormous volume of updates for FC. I've not checked on what 
> they fix, but I suspect they're mostly not security-related.

I think most are usability improvements for the desktop, and probably
not really needed on servers.

> I'd not like such a volatile selection of software on my server, I'd be 
> perpetually worried that something will break, and if a server breaks 
> then the whole enterprise (school in my case) is affected.

Yes, for example there was a recent util-linux update that
"broke" (though there was a workaround that could be used) client-side
NFS mounts to older servers, though an updated update was released the
day after.

> If you want a Red Hat-based solution then look at the free download 
> versions of RH's Enterprise Linux. I have not used one, but I might. I 
> have been downloading the source updates, and they're relatively few as 
> compared with FC.

Agreed. Centos looks a good bet.

Paul.
-- 
Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>