Re: PostgreSQL support on Redhat Advance Server 2.1

[MargaretGillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi Tom,

You wrote "Unfortunately Red Hat's backwards-compatibility
policy forbids dropping
new major PG releases into old RHEL branches". So that means I cannot
upgrade to Postgresql 8.x on a RedHat9 server? Currently I am using Postgresql
7.3 but was planning on upgrading before I put the database into production.

Thanks,
Margaret Gillon, IS Dept., Chromalloy Los Angeles, ext. 297


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Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:33:53 -0500
From: Tom Lane <tgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Jim C. Nasby" <jnasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Leon Pu <leon_xf_pu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
        Devrim GUNDUZ <devrim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
        "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
        pgsql general <pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: PostgreSQL support on Redhat Advance Server 2.1 
Message-ID: <5629.1143581633@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> On Tue, 2006-03-28 at 13:14, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
>> Tom has mentioned in the past that he's been backpatching stuff
to 7.3
>> as part of his job, so I would assume that RH will support any
7.3
>> version.

> But only for supported OSes.  I'm pretty sure 2.1 is past due
on that
> count.

The real problem is that PG 7.1 is effectively unsupportable: there are
too many fundamentally unfixable bugs in it, such as transaction ID
wraparound, type-unsafeness in I/O routines, yadda yadda.  These things
can't be dealt with without introducing significant incompatibilities,
which means you may as well just update to some newer version instead.

Unfortunately Red Hat's backwards-compatibility policy forbids dropping
new major PG releases into old RHEL branches, so AS2.1 is stuck with
7.1.  The best I can do in the way of support is to wave a big cluestick
at anyone foolish enough to try to use Postgres on that platform: get a
newer version, or expect to regret it.  I'm not bothering to back-patch
bug fixes, in view of the huge unfixable bugs.

RHEL3 (with PG 7.3) is at least something you could plausibly use
Postgres on without expecting to lose data, so 7.3 is still getting
fixes for major bugs.

                
                 
               
regards, tom lane