on 10-30-2008 12:51 PM Linuxguy123 spake the following: > I've been a RH/Fedora guy since the RH8 days. When Fedora came along, I > moved to it, but its been a bit painful beta testing software all the > time. I ran Ubuntu for a while, but I found their package management > to be difficult... I do a lot of technical work, development and loading > and building special stuff. I much prefer RPMs over other methods of > package distribution. > > Presently I'm miffed with the Fedora community. Back in July I blindly > upgraded to F9 because I was in need of a few things that it shipped > with. Little did I know it contained KDE4 or more precisely a rough, > unfinished version of KDE4. I stuck with it, however, and upgraded to > KDE4.1 and finally to KDE 4.1.2. > > About a month ago I received a new laptop. Being it was a new machine, > I did a fresh install of F8 on it, thus dumping KDE4. > > While all has been well since then, I am watching the KDE4 release > schedule and noting that I don't think KDE4 is going to be done, ie > polished and ready to use until late spring, 2009. I've also noted the > Fedora is going to abandon support for F8 before Christmas. As F9 > contains a very bleeding edge version of KDE4, I am loathe to upgrade to > it. > > Thus I am shopping for a new OS to solve this problem and the problem of > continually being a beta tester if one is an up to date Fedora user. > With Fedora it seems that one just gets a new installation working > nicely when support for it is dropped and the cycle starts all over > again. I'd like to get away from that. > > So... questions. > > a) I am running F8 right now. Most, but not all, of the package > versions seem about the same as CentOS 5.2. Kernels are the notable > exception to this rule. Could I forego F8 updates for a while, to leave > CentOS catch up, and then add the CentOS repository to my repo list and > "update" to the CentOS via yum ? Actually, CentOS 5 branched from Fedora 6. At that point they did a freeze on changes to the OS. > > b) One of the things I really need are up to date (bleeding edge) > kernels. For example, F8 has 2.6.26 kernels, whereas CentOS appears to > be running 2.6.18 kernels. I do know how to build my own kernels, but > that is a pain. What do you need in the bleeding edge kernels? If you are looking at security updates, those get backported very regularly. If you are looking for drivers, that is a different story. The Enterprise distros tend to stay at the dull side of the knife. The bleeding edge is not where you want to be when you want a server up for "five nines". > > Does someone keep a separate repository that has more modern kernels ? > Can yum be configured to use only specific packages (ie kernels) from a > specific repository ? You have to build your own and accept the responsibility. > > c) Is there any problem with using the livna repository for various > things that I might need ? I notice that they don't have a CentOS > specific repository, but would it be OK to point to F8 or so and use > those RPMs ? > There is only a problem if you don't mind breaking it. CentOS 5 was based on Fedora 6. Fedora 8 is way ahead. If you want something newer, CentOS 6 might be out in mid-2009. It is speculated to be based on Fedora 10 or so, but I'm sure that RedHat will make it as stable as possible. After all, the more paid support contracts that you "don't" have to actually fix anything, the bigger your profits are. You can try the live cd of CentOS 5 and see if it works with your lappy. > Thanks > > I'm listening if you have any other comments or advice on my situation. > You can have stability, or bleeding edge, but usually not both. It is like asking for a car that runs like a Ferrari, but uses gasoline like a Prius. You have to make choices. -- MailScanner is like deodorant... You hope everybody uses it, and you notice quickly if they don't!!!!
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