[ltp] Experience from updating RH 6.2 to RH 7.0 on TP 770X

[Jon A. Solworth]

Dean,
        Of course, the .0 rule of thumb is widely known.  But the assertion
that M$ software .0 release is more stable than open source projects has, AFAIK
no basis in fact.  There are numerous reasons why proprietary software has more
inherent problems:

        1. Proprietary vendors tend to increase complexity to make it
        difficult on competitors.  This increases quality assurance problems.
        (Note that Unix was a non-proprietary solution).

        2. Release cycles for proprietary products are often driven by
        marketing, rather than technical, considerations.  Proprietary
        products ship according to schedules.

        3. Free software makes greater use of the internet for identification
        and update of problems.

        Also note that the amount of software distributed with linux is far
larger than with proprietary distributions (eg. compilers, latex, ....).

        The problems with Redhat 7.0 stem from two issues:

        1. Failure to test even the most basic issues, ex JDK 1.2 would
        not run any Java program.

        2. Some really unsound decisions
                a. gcc 2.96
                b. variously patched, non-standard software

        I attribute 2) to the proprietary side of Redhat.

        I've switched to Debian, which is the soundest software release I've
ever used and with the most painless way for resolve problems there after.
(Of course, it does have drawbacks with complexity of its install and update,
but it is very well suited for the experienced unix user).

Jon

dean gaudet <dgaudet-list-linux-thinkpad@arctic.org> writes:

> the general rule of thumb is to never trust a .0 release.  not from redhat
> or anyone else.  especially in open source related projects where testing
> is nowhere near as thorough as, say, microsoft's herds of interns going
> through thousands of machine configurations.  having followed that for
> years and years i've been pretty damn satisfied with redhat.  ymmv of
> course.


-- 
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Jon A. Solworth                 	internet:  solworth@parsys.eecs.uic.edu
Dept. of EECS (M/C 154)			url: http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~solworth
University of Illinois at Chicago       telephone: (312) 996-0955
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