[lug] Your freshness-dated Linux (was: Re: Linux for K-12 school)

[Sean Reifschneider]

Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> Keep in mind that by the time this project has made it through the red tape, 
> that situation may be reversed -- RHEL/CentOS being more up to date than Ubuntu.

Jeffrey made a good point to me off-list that I hadn't considered: When RHEL 
ships it's not based off the most recent Fedora, but is instead based off 
something slightly in the past.  He had mentioned a Q1 2010 theory for 
release, and Kevin and I when we were talking about RHEL6 last Monday were 
thinking that it would be based off Fedora 11 or possibly 12 (the current or 
nearly current release).

In comparison, Ubuntu's LTS release is the same bits as their "desktop" 
release of the same number.  The next Ubuntu LTS release will likely be Q2 2010.

So, early in the year there will likely be a RHEL release, which has maybe 6 
month old software, followed by Ubuntu a few months later.

Of course, my past recollection is that the Ubuntu LTS releases push way more 
updates out during the first 6 months than RHEL, which may or may not be an issue.

I don't mean this as Ubuntu bashing or anything of course, I really like 
Ubuntu -- I'm sending this message from a netbook with Karmic on it and 
installed Karmic beta on my nephew's desktop today.  I'm just saying, there's 
going to be plenty of choice coming up.  :-)

Sean