Re: Migration from Redhat Linux 9 to LInux WS 3.0

>>>>> "Alan" == Alan McEwen <[email protected]> writes:

Alan> I am currently a Red Hat Network subscriber with Red Hat Linux 9.  I
Alan> have also installed MySQL and PHP using the Red Hat RPM.  I am
Alan> considering installing the latest, production releases of MySQL and
Alan> PHP, with one of the PDF libraries for PHP.

Alan> I guess my questions relate to the versions of MySQL, PHP and
Alan> OpenOffice that will be available in Release 3.0 of the Red Hat
Alan> Enterprise Linux products.  Can you give any indication of what these
Alan> will be?

Lets see.  I don't have a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 CD set at the moment,
but here are the RPMs in one of the last release candidates (I very much
doubt the versions would've changed):

mysql-3.23.58-1.i386.rpm
openoffice-1.0.2-8.i386.rpm
php-4.3.2-8.ent.i386.rpm

Alan> Or whether these will be upgraded in Red Hat Linux 9 before April
Alan> 2004?

Speaking not as a developer here, but as a tech writer that has worked with
the developers for the past six years, it is relatively rare that we will
upgrade (ie, move from one version to a newer version) any packages during
the life of a release.  The changes we make are overwhelmingly bug/security
fixes, and are almost always done against the version originally included
in the release.  It has happened that the best way to implement a
bug/security fix is to go to a newer version, but it is rare.  Rarer still
is moving to a newer version just because it's available.

So I could be wrong, but I wouldn't count on seeing any upgrades.

Alan> Am I better to upgrade to Enterprise Linux 3 in the near future and
Alan> myself install the latest stable releases of MySQL, PHP and
Alan> OpenOffice?

It depends.  Very conservative people would install Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 3, not upgrade these packages themselves but run with whatever Red
Hat provides.  Very aggressive people might go so far as to run the very
latest bleeding-edge Fedora Core test release, and take on the
responsibility of package upgrading, test, bugfixing entirely on their
own.

I also am not sure what upgrading these packages yourself would do to any
support agreement you would have with us; you'll need to check your service
level agreement and/or call our support staff to be sure.

Speaking as an ex-sysadmin, I personally always want my systems to be a
conservatively-configured as possible, with a minimum of additional work
done to make them ready for production.  Unless I *really* needed
functionality that was present only in the newer versions of these
packages, I would leave them alone.

I chased version numbers early in my sysadmin career, and I still have the
scars to prove it... :-)

                                Ed
-- 
Ed Bailey        Red Hat, Inc.          http://www.redhat.com/