[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: Novell SuSe DVD's... -- RHL9 (CL3.1), FC1 (CL3.2) and FC2 (CL4.0) considerations ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sat, 2004-09-11 at 12:38, Wayne Dahl wrote:
> Well, now, this was the question I had about it being an "evaluation
> copy".  What exactly does that mean?  I understood it to mean no
> support, but the question I had earlier was that after the evaluation
> period, does the software expire and shut down as in most commercial
> evaluation versions or what?  Does it continue to work, etc?

It is a "non-expiring evaluation copy."  But many of the Novell-SuSE
components are _not_ "free" to use, let alone redistribute.

> Also, I never found any "free" version when I was trying to find a
> downloadable version.  The only versions of Suse Professional 9.1 were
> the paid versions...even when it came to downloading.

I'm hoping Novell will slowly change that with at least SuSE Linux
Personal.  I know you can do a full FTP-based download/install, and they
have their "Live" CDs.  I'm still trying to find .isos.

The "big thing" that made SuSE Linux "proprietary" (and yes, that is the
proper word -- "proprietary"** is _not_ necessarily "evil"**) in years
prior was the non-100% redistributable nature of YaST.  This meant you
_had_ to personally "click thru" to get YaST -- either via installer or
the Internet.

But Novell GPL'd YaST almost immediately.  And most of the other
components that were "SuSE proprietary" in SuSE Linux Personal I've seen
have gone 100% redistributable.  So I don't consider SuSE Linux Personal
to be a "proprietary" commercial distribution anymore.

So all that is left is the trademark issue.  Like Red Hat, SuSE doesn't
mind "CheapBytes" like sites making 100% _unmodified_ copies for
redistribution.  It's when people start making off-shoots and not
changing the trademarks -- resulting in not only support issues, but
even several challenging their trademark as "public domain" with the
USPTO (this happened with Red Hat(R), hence Fedora(TM) now).

> I never did get a good install of FC2.  I have the CD's and even
> trying to start from scratch, the install would dump out and the
> machine would reboot before the install completed.

Interesting.  Did you check the install logs in /tmp to find out what
went wrong?  Most people don't.  Each and _every_ time I have, it's been
a CD read error.

> I have no idea what was happening...possibly a corrupt CD or
> something...have no idea.

Disk full, bad CD read, installer bug, etc...  It's good to find out.

I typically do NFS and on-disc installs (i.e., copy to an Ext2
partition) for new systems, because of the CD issues I have.  _Never_
had an issue there.

For upgrading, I've been using "apt-get dist-upgrade" from Fedora.US
(Fedora Extras -- _never_ use a "Fedora 3rd Party" implementation, like
FreshRPMS.NET) since Red Hat Linux 9.

> It would get quite far in the install, into the second CD where it was
> installing packages...and just dump.  After the third or fourth try, I
> went with the RH 9.0 I had.  It works.  

Don't forget about FedoraLegacy then, for RHL 7.3 and 9 updates:  
  http://www.fedoralegacy.org/download/  

This is Red Hat's new "update" model with the Fedora Project:  
  http://www.vaporwarelabs.com/files/temp/RH-Distribution-FAQ-4.html  

They are only supporting the last ".2" (or ".3") in a major release. 
Otherwise Red Hat would get stuck supporting 6+ releases as they have
since Red Hat Linux 6.

The question now is whether Red Hat will support Red Hat Linux 9 (CL3.1)
as the "last release" in the CL3 series, or Fedora Core 1 (CL3.2)?  I
assume popularity will tell, now that Fedora Core 1 is getting tagged as
"Legacy" any day now.

> So, does anyone have any advice about upgrade paths from RH 9.0 to FC
> 2?

Understand that Fedora Core 2 (CL4.0) is a ".0" release.  As such, it's
not exactly "cake" to upgrade.  But it _is_ the "smoothest" upgrade to a
".0" I've seen since Red Hat Linux 5.2 to 6.0 IMHO.

I personally upgraded from Red Hat Linux 9 (CL3.1) to Fedora Core 1
(CL3.2) via "apt-get dist-upgrade" with *0* issues.  But that is to be
expected with a ".1" to ".2" upgrade of any Red Hat distribution.

>From Fedora Core 1 (CL3.2) to Fedora Core 2 (CL4.0), I ran into only a
couple of issues -- one because of stock kernel changes (not Red Hat's
doing), although the error checking/resolution of the mkinitrd process
could be improved.  My log of this is here:  
  http://lists.leap-cf.org/pipermail/leaplist/2004-August/039896.html  

> Maybe upgrade to FC 1, then FC 2?  Can you go directly from RH 9 to
> FC 2?

Never tried RHL9 -> FC2, but I don't see why not any more than FC1 ->
FC2.  Fedora Core _is_ Red Hat Linux from a 100% technical perspective. 
The only thing that changes it the distribution model and lack of
support options (an necessary side-effect of the trademark issues). 
Regarding the latter, Red Hat _never_ offered SLAs and other support
options for Red Hat Linux, which is why not many took advantage of the
support offerings once Red Hat Enterprise Linux came about (most people
"just went for the gold").

Fedora Core 1 is _essentially_ Red Hat Linux 10, an "evolutionary" ".2"
release from Red Hat Linux 9, a ".1" release:  
http://www.vaporwarelabs.com/files/temp/RH-Distribution-FAQ-3.html#ss3.1

So if you can "apt-get dist-upgrade" from RHL9 (CL3.1) -> FC1 (CL3.2)
and FC1 (CL3.1) -> FC2 (CL4.0), you can probably "apt-get dist-upgrade"
directly from RHL9 (CL3.1) -> FC2 (CL4.0).

> Or would I be better off staying with RH 9 for now?

That's a personal choice.  If Red Hat Linux 9 works for you, and you
don't need any new features, then why change?  Fedora Legacy is
maintaining updates, per Red Hat's "unofficial" plan to address the
"problem" as detailed in my FAQ's Section 4.

It's the _exact_same_ decision people have had to make when _any_ new
".0" distribution release from Red Hat came about.  Things change,
things break, people get upset, but _forget_ that Red Hat _still_
supports the previous ".2" release for a _long_time_.  No other
commercial Linux vendor has done this for so long, so trusted!


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                  b.j.smith at ieee.org 
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