LTS for the server (was: Re: [lug] Ubuntu Hardy Heron release party tomorrow)

[Neal McBurnett]

Thanks - good overview (as usual), Sean.
A few comments and questions:

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 05:33:12PM -0600, Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> My general recommendation is:
> 
>    If you prefer Debian, use LTS for your production environment.
>    If you prefer Fedora, use CentOS for your production environment.

I'd think that if you prefer Debian, you'd use Debian for production.

If you prefer Ubuntu, use Ubuntu LTS for production servers, and
either Ubuntu LTS or a more recent version on production desktops or
mobile platforms, depending on the needs of the user.  And Sean has
a good point about finding some supported distro that meets your needs
rather than dealing with packaging and security updates yourself.

> dio2002 at indra.com wrote:
> >i don't want bleeding edge on a server either but
> > wondering if something like an LTS might be just a smidge further along on
> > the backports from newer more current versions?
> 
> As far as I know, LTS is using the same mechanism as Fedora.

Ubuntu uses the term "backport" to mean an alternative, newer version
of a package, made available as an optional add-on to older releases,
without security updates from the official security team.  Though my
sense is that the folks who do the backports do respond to security
issues.  It just isn't supported by the same people at the same level
as the main packages:

 https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports

Redhat seems to use the term backport more to talk about porting
just security fixes to supported packages.

Does RHEL or CentOS have backports in the Ubuntu sense?

Other questions:

Is there any difference in practice between CentOS and RHEL?  E.g. are
there applications only certified for RHEL, or are there any support
issues that many customers really care about?

Is RHEL/CentOS getting into the mobile space at all, like e.g. 
 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileAndEmbedded
 http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile

Are there any market share stats on mobile Linux?

Cheers,

Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/