the 'which distro' question

[Net Llama!]

On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Tony Alfrey wrote:
> Net Llama! wrote:
>> On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Tim Wunder wrote:
>>> On Friday 02 March 2007 9:55:18 am Tony Alfrey wrote:
>>>> Well, can you all comment on why I would need to do this frequent
>>>> upgrading if what I manage to install the first time works well?
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>> Security updates, bug fixes, etc...
>>
>> Indeed, running a distro without updates is equivalent to running Windows
>> without updates.  You're going to be left wide open to a large number of
>> security problems (not to mention bugs) over time.
>>
>
> Is this true if I run behind a firewall?  I think we talked about this
> before:  I have an Apple Airport Extreme network that uses NAT and the
> impression I got was that was pretty secure.  And I don't run a server
> visible to the outside world.

How would a firewall protect you from software bugs?  If application X is 
crashing every third time you run it (or after runnning it for 10 
minutes), you need to update the application.  Keep in mind that many of 
the packages in FC are the 'latest/greatest' version, and do occasionally 
have bugs (sometimes nasty ones, but usually not).  These bugs get fixed 
fast via updates.

Also, putting all network security in a firewall is a very risky 
proposition.  Once someone gets through the firewall, you're screwed.  Or 
here's a nice scenario.  What if you happen to run some piece of software 
(i dunno, firefox) which happens to end up with a remote exploit of some 
sort (and those have happened several times already).  So now you've been 
bitten by a software bug, which has then opened a nice door in your 
firewall for people to come in and own your box.   All becausde you didn't 
think that OS updates were important because you had a firewall.

>
> Some distros (like SuSE) have major revisions followed by minor fixes.
> In the past, I have waited for SuSE to go to, like 9.2 before using it.
>  Is this the same scheme with Fedora?

No.  FC has only major releases, every 6 to 9 months which replace the 
previous release.  There are no point releases.  That's what updates are 
for.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman                        netllama at linux-sxs.org
LlamaLand				http://netllama.linux-sxs.org