[NCLUG] Suggestions for a distro change

dann frazier dannf at dannf.org
Tue Apr 7 15:52:43 MDT 2009


On Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 01:08:04PM -0600, Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> Shelley, Robert - Fort Collins, CO wrote:
> > Linux distros, let me be the first to suggest Debian Long Term Stable.
> > http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-choosing.en.html#s3.1  It is intended
> 
> 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,

Though, if something critical comes out right after that, we're very
likely to still fix that release. (Had the openssl issue effected
sarge, I believe we would've updated it after the cut off).

>  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.

Right, but why would you install a new server with etch now that lenny
is out? :) Note that when etch security support terminates, it will
have been supported for 3 years.

Releases last at least 18 months - a new release every 18 months seems
to be the pie-in-the-sky goal for the release team, but reality is
closer to two years. So you can reasonably count on at least 2.5 years
of support. And that's full security support for nearly every package
(iceweasel & crew are a notable exception, due to upstream support).

If you need 5 years of security support, Debian is probably not your
best option. But if >= 2.5 years w/ a one year you-need-to-upgrade
warning works for you, then it might be an option - especially given
that Debian is well known for smooth online upgrades from release to
release (just make sure and read the release notes beforehand!)

> This is why I think that Debian is not a good choice for production
> servers.
> 
> Of course, it really depends on what you mean by "server".  If you mean
> something like "My music server at home", it's probably fine.  If you mean
> "The server at my data center that runs all these public-facing services,"
> in my experience Debian has not been a good choice.
> 
> Neither is Fedora or Ubuntu non-LTS or OpenSUSE.
> 
> If you are currently running Fedora, CentOS is probably what you want to
> look at.  It has 7 years of support, so CentOS 4 is supported until 2012,
> and CentOS 5 until 2014.  CentOS 3 even is supported for another 18 months.
> 
> Red Hat Enterprise is also an option, if you would like to pay the (modest
> IMHO) price for support.
> 
> Ubuntu LTS (8.04 currently) is another good choice.  The nice thing about
> Ubuntu LTS is that it's the same thing as the general release, there's not
> a Fedora/CentOS split like there is with RHEL.
> 
> However, *NOT* all Ubuntu releases are LTS, so you don't just go grab the
> latest Ubuntu you need to make sure to get the LTS if you want the longer
> package cycle.  This confusion is the down side of there being no split like
> Fedora/CentOS...
> 
> SUSE is really only an option if you are willing to pay for it.  There is
> no CentOS equivalent of SLES -- OpenSUSE is *NOT* an LTS release.  This is
> IMHO one of the major weaknesses of SUSE.
> 
> One thing to realize is that you pay a price for these longer term
> releases.  The packages on them will be older, so if you really rely on
> having recent packages you are likely to be disappointed.  If that's the
> case you either need to look at back-porting the packages you need (which
> can range in pain from "little" to "sticking your face in a fan", depending
> on how invasive that package is).
> 
> If you really need more recent packages, you will have to carefully think
> about whether you should go with a non-LTS release that has the packages
> you need, and take the pain of updating, deciding if you can live with the
> older versions, or deal with back-porting and checking for updates of the
> packages.
> 
> I realize that a lot of this is just echoing what others have said in this
> thread, but I think it also expands a bit on some of what was said.
> 
> Thanks,
> Sean



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-- 
dann frazier




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