On Wednesday 19 October 2005 12:57, Jim Perrin wrote:
> Fedora core releases a new major version 2-3 times a year. centos
> releases a minor version update (essentially security errata rollup.
> think "windows servicepack" for lack of a better analogy) every few
> months.
There are both good points and bad points to that analogy, Jim.
Unfortunately, the whole Service Pack moniker has received something of a
black eye. But, at the same time, the quarterly update rollups have their
own warts, too. The problem becomes one of a forced update to the equivalent
of a Service Pack quite a bit sooner than Microsoft does with its Service
Packs. "If you want Security Update X for your system, you must update to
Service Pack Y" first type things; the RHEL setup can force the use of the
updates sooner than Microsoft would dare, and the CentOS echo forces it
within a week (unless I'm missing a way to tell yum "grab security updates,
but leave the Quarterly alone for now"). But, then again, MS's Service Packs
tend to break a great many more things than RHEL quarterly updates do. But
they come out less frequently.
The big sticker is the size of the updates. Of course, RHEL Updates are
shipped out on physical media if required, right? If MS required users, in
order to stay updated, to download ~600MB every quarter, the outrage would be
significant.
--
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC 28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu
