Installing fedora at school

[Paul Howarth]

James Mckenzie wrote:
> It is pointed out on the Fedora site that FC is a testing release

Where exactly on the Fedora site does it say that "FC is a testing 
release"? I couldn't see it.

 > and they do not recommend using FC in a production environment.  I 
agree with their assessment. FC is a testing release and is subject to 
becoming unstable.  Since I test/evaluate software for a living, I stand 
by my statement that I would not use FC in a production environment nor 
would I use in a training evironment with one cavaet:  I would not run 
routine updates on the production machine, but would put updates on a 
testing/development system and see if they cause my production 
environment to become unstable (that means that it abnormally terminates 
[commonly referred to as crashes]) or my production software no longer 
functions as required.  I would not subject students to the same.  FC3 
out-of-the-box (or as distributed) has software flaws and will not work 
with certain systems or certain components.  This is known and is being 
worked by 'upstream' teams.  If FC3 works for you in a production 
system, then
>   I would not be routinely updating that server.  This means disabling the nightly updates by either up2date, yum, apt-get, or other updating programs.

Not unreasonable advice. I guess it depends on you ability to diagnose 
problems and revert changes if necessary. I use FC3 as both my home and 
work desktop, have updates installed automatically, and am very happy 
with it.

>>this is more due to the fast release cycle of fedora and not because
>>its a beta product
> 
> 
> Again, I refer to the Fedora Project and that this is a testing system, which from what I remember means that it is a beta.  Things can and do go terribly wrong and you might end up with an unbootable system.

That sounds more like Rawhide than Fedora Core.

Paul.