Re: Quick question: Choice of release

• Previous message: Marc Wilson: "Re: DVD Recording question"
• In reply to: Anders Breindahl: "Quick question: Choice of release"
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Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 11:50:57 +0800
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

Anders Breindahl wrote:

>I and a friend are playing with the idea of convincing our gymnasium to
>using Debian GNU/Linux as their main server OS.
>
>As it comes to this issue, which release we would want; stable, testing or
>unstable?
>
>Making the choice, it would matter that the focus is on reliability. We
>would want it to be absolutely reliable and secure. No security flaws would
>be accepted. On the other hand, we wouldn't want it to be outdated, so any
>performance-fixes are not included. What is the best compromise?
>
>
At this time I would go with Sarge. Here are some reasons;
1. It's about to be released as "Stable."
2. "Stable" in Debian mostly means "unchanging." Security fixes are
supplied, but you won't get any new technology during its life. The
technology in Woody is creaking with age. You will get better hardware
support in Sarge, newer and more capable Samba (for Windows file and
print sharing) etc.
3. If you install Woody now, sometime soonish you will feel the urge to
upgrade, and while upgrading the software is fairly easy, upgrading your
data might not be. Service will become unavailable while you attend to
databases, email storage, new configuration requirements and so on.
4. Sarge is now supported with security updates.

As for reliability, what uptime requirements do you have? If you're not
using a UPS, Sarge will be at least are reliable as your supply of
electrons. We're not talking about Windows which you must take down each
month for Bill's latest scheduled fixes or inbetween for hotfixes.
Mostly, you security updates are done in a minute or so (depends on
hardware, of course) and only affect the particular service being
updated. If you have to replace your MTA, nobody will notice unless
they're trying to send mail at the critical moment, and it wil be back
before they get to complain. Of course, task such as those should be
done when there are none, or few, users around, but you can easily have
your updates downloaded ready.

-- 
Cheers
John
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• Previous message: Marc Wilson: "Re: DVD Recording question"
• In reply to: Anders Breindahl: "Quick question: Choice of release"
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