[NCLUG] Suggestions for a distro change

[Bob Proulx]

Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> Debian stable is *NOT* a "long term" release, certainly not in the family
> of the "LT" in Ubuntu LTS or CentOS.  Debian only provides security
> updates for a release for 1 year after the following release, so it's
> fairly heavily driven by the Debian schedule.  Which means that right now
> we don't know how much longer Debian Lenny is going to be supported, and
> Etch is only supported for 10 months now.

True.  New releases tend to take a couple of years to produce.  But
saying it like you say it makes someone who doesn't know Debian think
that they must be happening very often, or at least too often.
(Debian releasing too often?  Ha!)  But since it has been taking at
least a couple of years per release it means that a stable release is
supported for around three years.  Sometimes longer.

  Woody  3.0  19 Jul 2002
  Sarge  3.1   6 Jun 2005
  Etch   4.0   8 Apr 2007
  Lenny  5.0  14 Feb 2009

Sure three years isn't as long as five years in Ubuntu's LTS.  So a
guaranteed five year support is certainly good for someone who wants
to set up a production server and keep it stable for a guaranteed five
years.  But three years doesn't really seem to short for me.

It is absolutely true that we don't know for sure today how long Lenny
will be supported.  But the likelihood is that it will be at least two
and a half years at the very extreme end of it-would-take-a-miracle if
it happened sooner to a much more likely three years given the past
record to an also possible three and a half to four years if the
project slips terribly which did happen in the Woody 3.0 era.

For me updating stable servers every two years is about the right
timeframe.  It is short enough that I can still remember what went
into them.  It is long enough that I am not needing to spend too much
effort too often.  It also gives plenty of margin, a whole year,
before I need to be concerned that security upgrades will no longer be
provided.

Also I find myself wanting to upgrade to the next stable to get moved
that much newer.  When a new stable comes out I am wanting to move to
it and find it a joy to so do rather than a burden.  Upgrades are
usually easy.  When things get too much longer than two years old it
gets harder to remember when 'find' added the -remove option or when
'ls' added the version sorting or when 'sort' added human suffix
sorting and things like that.  Therefore I tend to upgrade sooner than
the full three year support that is typically available.

I think Debian Stable makes an excellent server system.

Bob