[Klug-general] Shiny New Laptop

[Karl Lattimer]

> Call me picky but I'd add "potential" in front of "instability" :)
> Sometimes it is required though.  The majority of the time RH does
> provide the package I need but there have been several occasions where
> it isn't the version required or it has been compiled without certain
> features or (far less often) with features that cause problems.

Aye

> 
> > Of course, with fedora extras and rpmforge I doubt there is anything
> > which hasn't been built already, or at least anything useful that hasn't
> > been built!
> 
> In these situations there is also the management cost to consider.
> Using packages sourced from anywhere other than RH, that haven't gone
> through the RH QA processes for EL introduces an additional cost for
> continued maintenance.  In these situations (depending on the impact of
> the cost in the specific environment) I usually begin considering other
> distributions or Operating Systems.

Generally they still use the same cycle of release, devel -> testing ->
deploy, and have fairly good QC, but its not as good as RHEL. If you
have to manage it yourself, then there can be problems but generally, at
least now a days its not really an issue.

> 
> Then there is the majority of situations in which every package you need
> is provided by RH and there is no need to source anything externally.
> While that is great for stability and management you will eventually
> find you have become victim to vendor lock-in.
> 
> The whole concept of vendor lock-in with Open Source software always
> amuses me but there you have it.

Yep! ;) You're still free to build your own packages, add them to
distribution discs, repositories etc... 

Anaconda is after all open source. ;)


> Ahh, Caldera, I remember that.  I think I still have caldera, slack '96
> and RH4 on several CDs somewhere in the loft.  Think I'll leave them
> there :)

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

K,