[WBEL-users] Wondering about RedHat

William Warren hescominsoon@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com
Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:49:16 -0400


This is the kind of elitist attitude that scares many users away 
from linux in the first place.  Linux is not a commercial 
product(GNU license) so whether you pay for it or not is 
irrelevant.  This gentleman has been running RedHat for years. 
Instead of trying to smear somebody who obviously knows RedHat 
very well, try offering either constructive comments or say 
nothing at all..:)



Bastiaan van der Put wrote:

> Please buy a Redhat product and complain at them about "the quality 
> control has badly degraded".
> 
> Else don't complain about something you don't have.
> 
> And nobody forced you to upgrade, if you want to be conservative you can 
> choose yourself,
> wait for others to report problems.
> 
> If all people wait before someone else tried it and had the 
> problems.....nothing happend.
> 
> Bas
> At 17:19 9/29/2004, John Hinton wrote:
> 
>> I have been running RedHat (non-graphical apache/mail/bind/mysql 
>> server setups) since version 5.1 or so. I've done up2date for years 
>> and only ever had one issue where suddenly mysql could not be run from 
>> an offserver client. All in all, pretty minor considering the number 
>> of updates over the years. My whole reason for staying with RedHat was 
>> this track record. Yes, I could be more of a tech head and 'research' 
>> ever package before installing, but gee, I just don't seem to have the 
>> time to do that.
>>
>> That was then... this is now....
>>
>> So, we do the updates and suddenly bind is totally broken, I'm getting 
>> those makewhatis errors via cron and email... It seems that the 
>> quality control has badly degraded. How on earth can you send 
>> something out that breaks bind?
>>
>> So, I'm left wondering if their 'new' business model is creating some 
>> 'holes'. Perhaps Fedora Core is not in fact really feeding a good 
>> product over the the EL section? This is just all interesting to 
>> wonder about. What has changed and why are they suddenly now putting 
>> out so many bad packages?
>>
>> I'm really disturbed at this trend. I used to feel pretty darned 
>> secure about running up2date at any time... now???? Here I am on what 
>> is supposed to be the flagship product, and I now feel as though I 
>> need a 'test' server, upon which I can attempt to precisely mirror the 
>> packages installed on my more loaded machines, in order to see what's 
>> broken this time.
>>
>> Sorry to be venting here, but gee, what's going to be broken next 
>> time? The kernel? PAM? Something that will take my server down and 
>> leave me with no method to even get into it? I'm concerned.
>>
>> I would like everyone to know that I am totally directing this at 
>> RedHat and not Whitebox, as Whitebox does appear to be following 
>> exactly as they should, right down to the same broken packages.
>>
>> I'm left wondering though, if perhaps on these quarterly updates, if 
>> maybe we should create a 'beta' area, for us to test on, before 
>> throwing us into the den of lions, where 'stuff dies'? Maybe consider 
>> putting the security updates where they should be and the quarterly 
>> updates elsewhere, to protect us from the RedHat blunders. Or maybe 
>> even have a repository directory for only the security updates where 
>> we could set up2date to look only there and then do mass updating at 
>> other times. Maybe this could be done on only one repository or 
>> something... I know.... this is a pipe dream, but gee, for now I'd 
>> personally like to skip all this broken stuff and feel secure about 
>> updates again. Give RedHat time to put out the patched rpms for the 
>> broken stuff before updating. This could potentially make Whitebox 
>> more conservative, which it already is due to the slight time delay on 
>> updates, but even better than its parent.
>>
>> I'm just happy for this list, where the fixes are generally posted, so 
>> if one does run a bit behind on mission critical servers, the fixes 
>> are generally posted before I get around to doing my updates.
>>
>> Just food for thought....
>>
>> Thanks for Whitebox,
>> John Hinton <who is now very happy he's not on a 'beta' EL 
>> subscription and is looking at these SUSE DVDs laying here>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Whitebox-users mailing list
>> Whitebox-users@beau.org
>> http://beau.org/mailman/listinfo/whitebox-users
> 
> 
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-- 
My "Foundation" verse:
Isa 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; 
and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou 
shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, 
and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

-- carpe ductum -- "Grab the tape"