What software am I allowed to install?

[Ed Wilts]

On Sun, Aug 28, 2005 at 08:02:57PM -0700, Rik Herrin wrote:
>   I was just wondering what software I can safely install from 3rd
>   party sites that is not "supported" by RHEL without affecting my
>   support.  For example, I have a RHEL ES 3 machine that I was
>   thinking of upgrading to KDE 3.4.  Would this affect my support in
>   any way (except possibly for not getting updates for KDE 3.4 from
>   RH)?  I'm sure that some system libraries such as upgrading glibc or
>   gcc would probably affect my support to some degree.  Could anybody
>   clarify this issue?  Thanks for your time.

I don't work for Red Hat so this is just my opinion.

I would expect that if you upgrade to KDE 3.4, you will lose support not
only on all of the KDE components but also anything else in the
dependency tree.  If KDE 3.4 required an upgrade to glibc, you'll be
close to losing support for just about everything.

KDE used to have an option to install in a separate location and give
you the ability to run 2 versions at the same time.  If you can do this,
you can then easily isolate your supported and unsupported components.

In my opinion, you should not make major changes to a RHEL installation
and I would consider KDE, glibc, and gcc to all fall into this category.

What I've heard in the past from Red Hat Support is that if you have an
unsupported package on your system and require support for that
component, you may be asked to install the supported version first.
That might be doable with say httpd, but there's no easy way to do that
with KDE.

If you want to play with the bleeding edge, install Fedora - that is
what it is for.  For now, you can upgrade to KDE 3.3 by doing an upgrade
to the fully supported RHEL 4 - your subscription includes the rights to
do this.

-- 
Ed Wilts, RHCE
Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program