Re: Worth Upgrading to Fedora?

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Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:11:45 GMT

bigNuts wrote:

> Ok - now I don't know what to do.
>
> continue faffing around with RH8 and manually upgrading or installing FC1?
> I just want a system I can mess with sometimes, access my existing windows
> data (songs,vids,docs)
> what I dont want is to continually upgrade all the time with new packages
> and OS's (hey I thought this was one of the reasons to leave Windows
> behind).
> More than anything , after more than 20 years with computers (I started on
> a C64 in 82/3)(which I still got in the cellar!) I find I just don't have
> the time anymore (plus I am now married...).
>
> regards all,
>
> bN
>
> btw Solaris 9 i386 is free to download again.

Go with Fedora then, and don't upgrade, reinstall. Hopefully you're /home
and /etc directories are on their own partition(s) otherwise, you can
always backup the changed/personalised directories, reinstall, and then
replace your own data into them (and when you do the install this time, put
/home and /etc in their own partitions...). Sometimes weird things happen
when you upgrade, and a few library-app dependencies are bound to get
broken somewhere. Reinstall with your own fully backed-up data waiting to
sip in there is probably the most painless option.

 Like the man said, though... you could probably do just fine sticking with
RH8 or maybe even RH9 (but if you're going to move to RH9, why not move all
the way to FC1?).

 Upgrading is a fact of digital life, and it sucks. Its not going away
anytime soon, though. You're always going to have to patch your system and
spend at least some minimal effort to maintain it if you want things
secure. You can minimize this by eliminating unneeded services from your
system... as don't just not run them, don't even put them on your system to
begin with (what home user with Apache not installed is worried about a new
Apache vulnerability?).

When people say the upgrade system is better for Linux than Windows, what
they mean is nobody is forcing you to buy the latest version of an OS you
don't need by your license agreement. Nobody is going to write a bloatware
package that consumes so many resources that you are absolutely forced to
by a new computer and a new OS to fit it. RH8 is fundamentally no different
from Fedora Core, its just a different support model and a few newer things
(like anti-aliasing a'la RH9) that don't really affect the system much...

If your RH8 works for you now, it will work for you in the future unless
your use of the system changes in some fundamental way. Yeah, there'll be
no more up2date for you, but you can always patch your stuff yourself. I
know a guy still running Caldera OpenLinux 1.3 (remember that?) because he
patches his stuff himself, and re-reved his kernel (only twice, though). He
didn't actually need anything higher-end for what he does, so it works out
fine for him and the 486 (no kidding) he uses to check newsgroups and route
his LAN. Its sufficient. Why change it? Granted its morphed from being OL
1.3 to something sort of unique by this time, but whatever.

-Me

-- 
http://barfdader.com
"Beat your children at least once a day; if you don't know why, they do."
-A surprisingly famous guy

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